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The  St.  Francis  at  tea-time. — With  her  hotels  San  Francisco  is  New 
York,  but  with  her  people  she  is  San  Francisco — which  comes  near 
being  the  apotheosis  of  praise 


ABROAD   AT   HOME 


AMERICAN   RAMBLINGS,   OBSERVATIONS,   AND 
ADVENTURES  OF 


JULIAN  ^TREET 


WITH  PICTORIAL  SIDELIGHTS 
BY 

WALLACE  MORGAN 


NEW  YORK 

THE  CENTURY  CO. 

1916 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Copyright,  1914,  by 
P.  F.  COLLIER  &  SON,  INC. 

Published,  November,   1914 


*^~-t.  ST^W 


GIF! 


TO  MY  FATHER 
the  companion  of  my  first  railroad  journey 


The  Author  takes  this  opportunity  to  thank  the  old 
friends,  and  the  new  ones,  who  assisted  him  in  so  many 
ways,  upon  his  travels.  Especially,  he  makes  his  affec 
tionate  acknowledgment  to  his  wise  and  kindly  com 
panion,  the  Illustrator,  whose  admirable  drawings  are 
far  from  being  his  only  contribution  to  this  volume. 

-J.S. 

New  York, 

October,  1914. 


CONTENTS 

STEPPING  WESTWARD 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     STEPPING   WESTWARD      .............       3 

II     BIFURCATED   BUFFALO     ..........     •     >     •     2i 

III     CLEVELAND   CHARACTERISTICS      .........     4O 


IV    MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 


MICHIGAN  MEANDERINGS 

V    DETROIT  THE  DYNAMIC 


48 


VI    AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART       ............     77 

VII     THE  MAECENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR    .......... 


VIII    THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK IO5 

IX     KALAMAZOO I2I 

X     GRAND  RAPIDS  THE  "ELECT" I27 

CHICAGO 

XI    A  MIDDLE-WESTERN   MIRACLE I3g 

XII     FIELD'S  AND  THE   "TRIBUNE" I50 

XIII  THE   STOCKYARDS l64 

XIV  THE  HONORABLE  HINKY  DINK I73 

XV    AN  OLYMPIAN  PLAN .   l8l 

XVI    LOOKING  BACKWARD        jg- 

"IN  MIZZOURA" 

XVII    SOMNOLENT   ST.   LOUIS 201 

XVIII    THE  FINER   SIDE 22J 

XIX    HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 237 

XX    PIKE  AND  POKER 2^ 

XXI    OLD  RIVER  DAYS ^ 

ix 


x  CONTENTS 

THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  WEST 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XXII    KANSAS   CITY       „ 275 


XXIII     ODDS  AND  ENDS 


XXV     KEEPING  A  PROMISE 


XXXV     THE    SMITHS 


XXXVI     PASSING   PICTURES 
XXXVII     SAN    FRANCISCO 


XL    NEW  YORK  AGAIN 


291 


XXIV     COLONEL   NELSON'S    "STAR" 3O2 


313 


XXVI  THE  TAME   LION        .      .      ............   323 

XXVII  KANSAS  JOURNALISM        .......     „     .     0     .     .     .   337 

XXVIII  A    COLLEGE    TOWN        ..............   345 

XXIX  MONOTONY    .................   365 

THE  MOUNTAINS  AND  THE  COAST 

XXX  UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK     ..............   37Q 

XXXI  HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT     .............  4OO 

XXXII  COLORADO  SPRINGS     „     ......     .     ......  4I7 

XXXIII  CRIPPLE  CREEK   ............      •     •     •  '  *  434 

XXXIV  THE  MORMON   CAPITAL   .     .     „     .     .     .     „     .     .     .     .     .     . 


..............  454 

465 

0 o     ....  474 

XXXVIII    "BEFORE  THE  FIRE"    .     .     .     „     .     0     ........   488 

XXXIX     AN   EXPOSITION  AND  A   "BOOSTER" 498 


507 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

The  St.  Francis  at  tea-time. — With  her  hotels  San  Francisco  is  New 
York,  but  with  her  people  she  is  San  Francisco — which  comes 
near  being  the  apotheosis  of  praise Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

I  was  moving  about  my  room,  my  hands  full  of  hairbrushes  and  tooth 
brushes  and  clothesbrushes  and  shaving  brushes;  my  head  full  of 
railroad  trains,  and  hills,  and  plains,  and  valleys 5 

A  dusky  redcap  took  my  baggage 12 

What  scenes  these  black,  pathetic  people  had  passed  through— were 
passing  through!  Why  did  they  not  look  up  in  wonderment?  .  17 

We  made  believe  we  wanted  to  go  out  and  smoke.  And  as  we  left 
our  seats  she  made  believe  she  did  n't  know  that  we  were  going  .  23 

The  gentleman  who  favored  linen  mesh  was  a  fat,  prosperous-look 
ing  person,  whose  gold-rimmed  spectacles  reflected  flying  lights 
from  out  of  doors 26 

In  a  few  hours  there  was  enough  shame  around  us  to  have  lasted  all 
the  reformers  and  muckrakers  I  know  a  whole  month  ....  32 

My  companion  and  I  made  excuses  to  go  downstairs  and  wash  our 
hands  in  the  public  washroom,  just  for  the  pleasure  of  doing  so 
without  fear  of  being  attacked  by  a  swarthy  brigand  with  a  brush  35 

I  was  prepared  to  take  the  field  against  all  comers,  not  only  in  favor 
of  simplicity,  but  in  favor  of  anything  and  everything  which  was 
favored  by  my  hostess 38 

Chamber  of  Commerce  representatives  were  with  us  all  the  first  day 
and  until  we  went  to  our  rooms,  late  at  night 43 

It  is  an  Elizabethan  building,  with  a  heavy  timbered  front,  suggest 
ing  some  ancient,  hospitable,  London  coffee  house  where  wits  of 
old  were  used  to  meet 46 

In  this  charming,  homelike  old  building,  with  its  grandfather's  clock, 
its  Windsor  chairs,  and  its  open  wood  fires,  a  visitor  finds  it  hard 
to  realize  that  he  is  in  the  "west" 53 

Down  by  the  docks  we  saw  gigantic,  strange  machines,  expressive  of 
Cleveland's  lake  commerce — machines  for  loading  and  unloading 
ships  in  the  space  of  a  few  hours 60 

In  midstream  passes  a  continual  parade  of  freighters  .  .  .  and  in 

xi 


xii  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

their  swell  you  may  see,  teetering,  all  kinds  of  craft,  from  proud 
white  yachts  to  canoes 71 

The  automobile  has  not  only  changed  Detroit  from  a  quiet  old  town 
into  a  rich,  active  city,  but  upon  the  drowsy  romance  of  the  old 
days  it  has  superimposed  the  romance  of  modern  business  ...  74 

Of  course  there  was  order  in  that  place,  of  course  there  was  system — 
relentless  system — terrible  "efficiency" — but  to  my  mind  it  ex 
pressed  but  one  thing,  and  that  thing  was  delirium 97 

Never,  since  then,  have  I  heard  men  jeering  over  women  as  they  look 
in  dishabille,  without  wondering  if  those  same  men  have  ever  seen 
themselves  clearly  in  the  mirrored  washroom  of  a  sleeping  car  .  112 

"Can  that  stuff,"  admonished  Miss  Buck  in  her  easy,  offhand  manner  .   117 

She  was  saying  to  herself  (and,  unconsciously,  to  us,  through  the 
window)  :  "If  I  had  played  that  hand,  I  never  should  have  done 
it  that  way!" 124 

Rodin's  "Thinker" 145 

Chicago's  skyline  from  the  docks.  ...  A  city  which  rebuilt  itself  after 
the  fire;  in  the  next  decade  doubled  its  size;  and  now  has  a  popu 
lation  of  two  million,  plus  a  city  of  about  the  size  of  San  Fran 
cisco  160 

Two  rabbis,  old  bearded  men,  performed  the  rites  with  long,  slim, 
shiny  blades 177 

As  I  stood  there,  studying  the  temperament  of  pigs,  I  saw  the  butcher 
looking  up  at  me.  ...  I  have  never  seen  such  eyes 192 

The  bold  front  of  Michigan  Avenue  along  Grant  Park  .  .  .  great 
buildings  wreathed  in  whirling  smoke  and  that  allegory  of  infinity 
which  confronts  one  who  looks  eastward 196 

The  dilapidation  of  the  quarter  has  continued  steadily  from  Dickens's 
day  to  this,  and  the  beauty  now  to  be  discovered  there  is  that  of 
decay  and  ruin 205 

The  three  used  bridges  which  cross  the  Mississippi  River  at  St.  Louis 
are  privately  controlled  toll  bridges 212 

The  skins  are  handled  in  the  raw  state  .  .  .  with  the  result  that  the 
floor  of  the  exchange  is  made  slippery  by  animal  fats,  and  that  the 
olfactory  organs  encounter  smells  not  to  be  matched  in  any  zoo  .  221 

St.  Louis  needs  to  be  taken  by  the  hand  and  led  around  to  some  mu 
nicipal-improvement  tailor,  some  civic  haberdasher 225 

We  came  upon  the  "Mark  Twain  House."  .  .  .  And  to  think  that, 
wretched  as  this  place  was,  the  Clemens  family  were  forced  to 
leave  it  for  a  time  because  they  were  too  poor  to  live  there  .  .  240 

At  one  side  is  an  alley  running  back  to  the  house  of  Huckleberry  Finn, 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  xiii 

FACING 
PAGE 

and  in  that  alley  stood  the  historic  fence  which  young  Sam 
Clemens  cajoled  the  other  boys  into  whitewashing  for  him  .  .  244 

Never  outside  of  Brittany  and  Normandy  have  I  seen  roads  so  full  of 
animals  as  those  of  Pike  County 253 

Mr.  Roberts  is  a  wonder — nothing  less.  There  's  a  book  in  him,  and 
I  hope  that  somebody  will  write  it,  for  I  should  like  to  read  that 
book 268 

Looking  down  from  Kersey  Coates  Drive,  one  sees  .  .  .  the  appalling 
web  of  railroad  tracks,  crammed  with  freight  cars,  which  seen 
through  a  softening  haze  of  smoke,  resemble  a  relief  map — strange, 
vast  and  pictorial 289 

Colonel  Nelson  is  a  "character."  Even  if  he  didn't  own  the  "Star," 
.  .  o  he  would  be  a  "character."  ...  I  have  called  him  a  volcano ; 
he  is  more  like  one  than  any  other  man  I  have  ever  met  .  .  .  304 

Mr.  Fish  informed  me  that  the  waters  of  Excelsior  Springs  resemble 
the  waters  of  Homburg,  the  favorite  watering  place  of  the  late 
King  Edward — or,  rather,  I  think  he  put  it  the  other  way  round  .  322 

We  strolled  in  the  direction  of  the  old  house,  that  house  of  tragedy  in 
which  the  family  lived  in  the  troublous  times.  ...  It  was  there 
that  the  Pinkertons  threw  the  bomb 328 

It  was  Frank  James.  ...  He  looks  more  like  a  prosperous  farmer  or 
the  president  of  a  rural  bank  than  like  a  bandit.  In  his  manner 
there  is  a  strong  note  of  the  showman 335 

The  campus  seems  to  have  "just  growed."  .  .  .  Nevertheless,  there  is 
a  sort  of  homely  charm  about  the  place,  with  its  unimposing,  hel 
ter-skelter  piles  of  brick  and  stone 353 

Even  at  sea  the  great  bowl  of  the  sky  had  never  looked  to  me  so  vast  368 

The  little  towns  of  western  Kansas  are  far  apart  and  have,  like  the 
surrounding  scenery,  an  air  of  sadness  and  desolation  ....  373 

In  the  lobby  of  the  Brown  Palace  Hotel  we  saw  several  old  fellows, 
sitting  about,  looking  neither  prosperous  nor  busy,  but  always 
talking  mines.  A  kind  word,  or  even  a  pleasant  glance,  is  enough 
to  set  them  off 380 

"Ain't  Nature  wonderful !" 405 

I  was  by  this  time  very  definitely  aware  that  I  had  my  fill  of  winter 
motoring  in  the  mountains.  The  mere  reluctance  I  felt  as  we  be 
gan  to  climb  had  now  developed  into  a  passionate  desire  to  desist  412 

The  homes  of  Colorado  Springs  really  explain  the  place  and  the  so 
ciety  is  as  cosmopolitan  as  the  architecture 417 

On  the  road  to  Cripple  Creek  we  were  always  turning,  always  turn 
ing  upward 432 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING 
PAGE 

We  were  invited  to  meet  the  President  of  the  Mormon  Church  and 
some  members  of  his  family  at  the  Beehive  House,  his  official 
residence 452 

The  Lion  House — a  large  adobe  building  in  which  formerly  resided 
the  rank  and  file  of  Brigham  Young's  wives 461 

The  Cliff  House  has  a  Sorrento  setting  and  hectic  turkey-trotting 
nights 468 

The  Salt-water  pool,  Olympic  Club,  San  Francisco 477 

The  switchboard  of  the  Chinatown  telephone  exchange  is  set  in  a 
shrine  and  the  operators  are  dressed  in  Chinese  silks  ....  496 

We  believed  we  had  encountered  every  kind  of  "booster"  that  creeps, 
crawls,  walks,  crows,  cries,  bellows,  barks  or  brays,  but  it  re 
mained  for  the  Exposition  to  show  us  a  new  specimen  ....  504 

New  York — Everyone  is  in  a  hurry.  Everyone  is  dodging  everyone 
else.  Everyone  is  trying  to  keep  his  knees  from  being  knocked 
by  swift-passing  suitcases 513 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

CHAPTER  I 
STEPPING  WESTWARD 

'What,  you  are  stepping  westward?" — "Yea." 
— 'Twould  be  a  wildish  destiny, 
If  we,  who  thus  together  roam 
In  a  strange  Land,  and  far  from  home, 
Were  in  this  place  the  guests  of  Chance: 
Yet  who  would  stop  or  fear  to  advance, 
Though  home  or  shelter  he  had  none, 
With  such  a  sky  to  lead  him  on? 

— WORDSWORTH. 

FOR  some  time  I  have  desired  to  travel  over  the 
United  States — to  ramble  and  observe  and  seek 
adventure  here,  at  home,  not  as  a  tourist  with  a 
short  vacation  and  a  round-trip  ticket,  but  as  a  kind  of 
privateer  with  a  roving  commission.  The  more  I  have 
contemplated  the  possibility  the  more  it  has  engaged  me. 
For  we  Americans,  though  we  are  the  most  restless  race 
in  the  world,  with  the  possible  exception  of  the  Bedouins, 
almost  never  permit  ourselves  to  travel,  either  at  home 
or  abroad,  as  the  "guests  of  Chance."  We  always  go 
from  one  place  to  another  with  a  definite  purpose.  We 

3 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

never  amble.  On  the  boat,  going  to  Europe,  we  talk 
of  leisurely  trips  away  from  the  "beaten  track,"  but  we 
never  take  them.  After  we  land  we  rush  about  obsessed 
by  "sights,"  seeing  with  the  eyes  of  guides  and  thinking 
the  "canned"  thoughts  of  guidebooks. 

In  order  to  accomplish  such  a  trip  as  I  had  thought 
of  I  was  even  willing  to  write  about  it  afterward. 
Therefore  I  went  to  see  a  publisher  and  suggested  that 
he  send  me  out  upon  my  travels. 

I  argued  that  Englishmen,  from  Dickens  to  Arnold 
Bennett,  had  "done"  America;  likewise  Frenchmen  and 
Germans.  And  we  have  traveled  over  there  and  writ 
ten  about  them.  But  Americans  who  travel  at  home  to 
write  (or,  as  in  my  case,  write  to  travel)  almost  always 
go  in  search  of  some  specific  thing:  to  find  corruption 
and  expose  it,  to  visit  certain  places  and  describe  them 
in  detail,  or  to  catch,  exclusively,  the  comic  side.  For 
my  part,  I  did  not  wish  to  go  in  search  of  anything 
specific.  I  merely  wished  to  take  things  as  they  might 
come.  And — speaking  of  taking  things — I  wished, 
above  all  else,  to  take  a  good  companion,  and  I  had  him 
all  picked  out :  a  man  whose  drawings  I  admire  almost 
as  much  as  I  admire  his  disposition ;  the  one  being  who 
might  endure  my  presence  for  some  months,  sharing 
with  me  his  joys  and  sorrows  and  collars  and  cigars,  and 
yet  remain  on  speaking  terms  with  me. 

The  publisher  agreed  to  all.  Then  I  told  my  New 
York  friends  that  I  was  going. 

They  were  incredulous.  That  is  the  New  York  atti- 

4 


I  was  moving  about  my  room,  my  hands  full  of  hairbrushes  and  toothbrushes 
and  clothesbrushes  and  shaving  brushes ;  my  head  full  of  railroad  trains,  and  hills, 
and  plains,  and  valleys 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

tude  of  mind.  Your  "typical  New  Yorker"  really 
thinks  that  any  man  who  leaves  Manhattan  Island  for 
any  destination  other  than  Europe  or  Palm  Beach  must 
be  either  a  fool  who  leaves  voluntarily  or  a  criminal 
taken  off  by  force.  For  the  picturesque  criminal  he 
may  be  sorry,  but  for  the  fool  he  has  scant  pity. 


At  a  farewell  party  which  they  gave  us  on  the  night 
before  we  left,  one  of  my  friends  spoke,  in  an  emo 
tional  moment,  of  accompanying  us  as  far  as  Buffalo. 
He  spoke  of  it  as  one  might  speak  of  going  up  to  Baffin 
Land  to  see  a  friend  off  for  the  Pole. 

I  welcomed  the  proposal  and  assured  him  of  safe  con 
duct  to  that  point  in  the  "interior."  I  even  showed  him 
Buffalo  upon  the  map.  But  the  sight  of  that  wide- 
flung  chart  of  the  United  States  seemed  only  to  alarm 
him.  After  regarding  it  with  a  solemn  and  uneasy  eye 
he  shook  his  head  and  talked  long  and  seriously  of 
his  responsibilities  as  a  family  man — of  his  duty  to  his 
wife  and  his  limousine  and  his  elevator  boys. 

It  was  midnight  when  good-bys  were  said  and  my 
companion  and  I  returned  to  our  respective  homes  to 
pack.  There  were  many  things  to  be  put  into  trunks 
and  bags.  A  clock  struck  three  as  my  weary  head 
struck  the  pillow.  I  closed  my  eyes.  Then  when,  as  it 
seemed  to  me,  I  was  barely  dozing  off  there  came  a 
knocking  at  my  bedroom  door. 

"What  is  it?" 

5 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"Six  o'clock/'  replied  the  voice  of  our  trusty  Han 
nah. 

As  I  arose  I  knew  the  feelings  of  a  man  condemned 
to  death  who  hears  the  warden's  voice  in  the  chilly 
dawn:  "Come!  It  is  the  fatal  hour!" 

When,  fifteen  minutes  later,  doubting  Hannah  (who 
knows  my  habits  in  these  early  morning  matters) 
knocked  again,  I  was  moving  about  my  room,  my 
hands  full  of  hairbrushes  and  toothbrushes  and  clothes 
brushes  and  shaving  brushes;  my  head  full  of  railroad 
trains,  and  hills,  and  plains  and  valleys,  and  snow 
capped  mountain  peaks,  and  smoking  cities  and  smok 
ing-cars,  and  people  I  had  never  seen. 

The  breakfast  table,  shining  with  electric  light,  had 
a  night-time  aspect  which  made  eggs  and  coffee  seem 
bizarre.  I  do  not  like  to  breakfast  by  electric  light,  and 
I  had  done  so  seldom  until  then;  but  since  that  time  I 
have  done  it  often — sometimes  to  catch  the  early  morn 
ing  train,  sometimes  to  catch  the  early  morning  man. 

Beside  my  plate  I  found  a  telegram.  I  ripped  the 
envelope  and  read  this  final  punctuation-markless  mes 
sage  from  a  literary  friend: 

you  are  going  to  discover  the  united  states  dont  be 
afraid  to  say  so 

That  is  an  awful  thing  to  tell  a  man  in  the  very  early 
morning  before  breakfast.  In  my  mind  I  answered 
with  the  cry:  "But  I  am  afraid  to  say  so!" 

And  now,  months  later,  I  am  still  afraid  to  say  so,  be- 

6 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

cause,  despite  a  certain  truth  the  statement  may  contain, 
it  seems  to  me  to  sound  ridiculous,  and  ponderous,  and 
solemn  with  an  asinine  solemnity. 

It  spoiled  my  last  meal  at  home — that  well-meant  tele 
gram. 

I  had  not  swallowed  my  second  cup  of  coffee  when, 
from  her  switchboard,  a  dozen  floors  below,  the  operator 
telephoned  to  say  my  taxi  had  arrived;  whereupon  I 
left  the  table,  said  good-by  to  those  I  should  miss  most 
of  all,  took  up  my  suit  case  and  departed. 

Beside  the  curb  there  stood  an  unhappy-looking  taxi- 
cab,  shivering  as  with  malaria,  but  the  driver  showed 
a  face  of  brazen  cheerfulness  which,  considering  the 
hour  and  the  circumstances,  seemed  almost  indecent. 
I  could  not  bear  his  smile.  Hastily  I  blotted  him  from 
view  beneath  a  pile  of  baggage. 

With  a  jerk  we  started.  Few  other  vehicles  disputed 
our  right  to  the  whole  width  of  Seventy-second  Street 
as  we  skimmed  eastward.  Farewell,  O  Central  Park! 
Farewell,  O  Plaza!  And  you,  Fifth  Avenue,  empty, 
gray,  deserted  now;  so  soon  to  flash  with  fascinating 
traffic.  Farewell !  Farewell ! 

Presently,  in  that  cavern  in  which  vehicles  stop  be 
neath  the  overhanging  cliffs  of  the  Grand  Central  Sta 
tion,  we  drew  up.  A  dusky  redcap  took  my  baggage.  I 
alighted  and,  passing  through  glass  doors,  gazed  down 
on  the  vast  concourse.  Far  up  in  the  lofty  spaces  of 
the  room  there  seemed  to  hang  a  haze,  through  which 
— from  that  amazing  and  audacious  ceiling,  painted  like 

7 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  heavens — there  twinkled,  feebly,  morning  stars  of 
gold.  Through  three  arched  windows,  towering  to  the 
height  of  six-story  buildings,  the  eastern  light  streamed 
softly  in,  combining  with  the  spaciousness  around  me, 
and  the  blue  above,  to  fill  me  with  a  curious  sense  of 
paradox :  a  feeling  that  I  was  indoors  yet  out  of  doors. 

The  glass  dials  of  the  four-faced  clock,  crowning  the 
information  bureau  at  the  center  of  the  concourse, 
glowed  with  electric  light,  yellow  and  sickly  by  con 
trast  with  the  day  which  poured  in  through  those 
windows.  Such  stupendous  windows!  Gargantuan 
spider  webs  whose  threads  were  massive  bars  of  steel. 
And  suddenly  I  saw  the  spider!  He  emerged  from 
one  side,  passed  nimbly  through  the  center  of  the  web, 
disappeared,  emerged  again,  crossed  the  second  web 
and  the  third  in  the  same  way,  and  was  gone — a  two- 
legged  spider,  walking  importantly  and  carrying  papers 
in  his  hand.  Then  another  spider  came,  and  still  an 
other,  each  black  against  the  light,  each  on  a  different 
level.  For  those  windows  are,  in  reality,  more  than 
windows.  They  are  double  walls  of  glass,  supporting 
floors  of  glass — layer  upon  layer  of  crystal  corridor,  sus 
pended  in  the  air  as  by  genii  out  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 
And  through  these  corridors  pass  clerks  who  never 
dream  that  they  are  princes  in  the  modern  kind  of  fairy 
tale. 

As  yet  the  torrent  of  commuters  had  not  begun  to 
pour  through  the  vast  place.  The  floor  lay  bare  and 
tawny  like  the  bed  of  some  dry  river  waiting  for  the 

8 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

melting  of  the  mountain  snows.  Across  the  river  bed 
there  came  a  herd  of  cattle — Italian  immigrants,  dark- 
eyed,  dumb,  patient,  uncomprehending.  Two  weeks 
ago  they  had  left  Naples,  with  plumed  Vesuvius  loom 
ing  to  the  left;  yesterday  they  had  come  to  Ellis 
Island;  last  night  they  had  slept  on  station  benches; 
to-day  they  were  departing;  to-morrow  or  the  next  day 
they  would  reach  their  destination  in  the  West.  Sud 
denly  there  came  to  me  from  nowhere,  but  with  a 
poignance  that  seemed  to  make  it  new,  the  platitudinous 
thought  that  life  is  at  once  the  commonest  and  strangest 
of  experiences.  What  scenes  these  black,  pathetic 
people  had  passed  through — were  passing  through! 
Why  did  they  not  look  up  in  wonderment?  Why  were 
their  bovine  eyes  gazing  blankly  ahead  of  them  at  noth 
ing?  What  had  dazed  them  so — the  bigness  of  the 
world?  Yet,  after  all,  why  should  they  understand? 
What  American  can  understand  Italian  railway  sta 
tions?  They  have  always  seemed  to  me  to  express 
a  sort  of  mild  insanity.  But  the  Grand  Central 
terminal  I  fancy  I  do  understand.  It  seems  to  me  to 
be  much  more  than  a  successful  station.  In  its  stupefy 
ing  size,  its  brilliant  utilitarianism,  and,  most  of  all,  in 
its  mildly  vulgar  grandeur,  it  seems  to  me  to  express, 
exactly,  the  city  to  which  it  is  a  gate.  That  is  some 
thing  every  terminal  should  do  unless,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Pennsylvania  terminal  in  New  York,  it  expresses 
something  finer.  The  Grand  Central  Station  is  New 
York,  but  that  classic  marvel  over  there  on  Seventh 

9 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Avenue  is  more:  it  is  something  for  New  York  to  live 
up  to. 

When  I  had  bought  my  ticket  and  moved  along  to 
count  my  change  there  came  up  to  the  ticket  win 
dow  a  big  man  in  a  big  ulster  who  asked  in  a  big  voice 
for  a  ticket  to  Grand  Rapids.  As  he  stood  there 
I  was  conscious  of  a  most  un-New- York-like  wish  to 
say  to  him :  "After  a  while  I  'm  going  to  Grand 
Rapids,  too!"  And  I  think  that,  had  I  said  it,  he 
would  have  told  me  that  Grand  Rapids  was  "some  town" 
and  asked  me  to  come  in  and  see  him,  when  I  got  there, 
— "at  the  plant,"  I  think  he  would  have  said. 

As  I  crossed  the  marble  floor  to  take  the  train  I  caught 
sight  of  my  traveling  companion  leaning  rigidly  against 
the  wall  beside  the  gate.  He  did  not  see  me.  Reach 
ing  his  side,  I  greeted  him. 

He  showed  no  signs  of  life.  I  felt  as  though  I  had 
addressed  a  waxwork  figure. 

"Good  morning,"  I  repeated,  calling  him  by  name. 

"I  Ve  just  finished  packing,"  he  said.  "I  never  got 
to  bed  at  all." 

At  that  moment  a  most  attractive  person  put  in  an  ap 
pearance.  She  was  followed  by  a  redcap  carrying  a 
lovely  little  Russia  leather  bag.  A  fe\y  years  before  I 
should  have  called  a  bag  like  that  a  dressing  case,  but 
watching  that  young  woman  as  she  tripped  along  with 
steps  restricted  by  the  slimness  of  her  narrow  satin 
skirt,  it  occurred  to  me  that  modes  in  baggage  may  have 

10 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

changed  like  those  in  woman's  dress  and  that  her  lit 
tle  leather  case  might  be  a  modern  kind  of  wardrobe 
trunk. 

My  companion  took  no  notice  of  this  agitating  pres 
ence. 

"Look!"  I  whispered.     "She  is  going,  too." 

Stiffly  he  turned  his  head. 

"The  pretty  girl,"  he  remarked,  with  sad  philosophy, 
"is  always  in  the  other  car.  That 's  life." 

"No,"  I  demurred.  "It 's  only  early  morning 
stuff." 

And  I  was  right,  for  presently,  in  the  parlor  car,  we 
found  our  seats  across  the  aisle  from  hers. 

Before  the  train  moved  out  a  boy  came  through  with 
books  and  magazines,  proclaiming  loudly  the  "last  call 
for  reading  matter." 

I  think  the  radiant  being  believed  him,  for  she  bought 
a  magazine — a  magazine  of  pretty  girls  and  piffle: 
just  the  sort  we  knew  she  'd  buy.  As  for  my  companion 
and  me,  we  made  no  purchases,  not  crediting  the  state 
ment  that  it  was  really  the  "last  call."  But  I  am  im 
pelled  to  add  that  having,  later,  visited  certain  book 
stores  of  Buffalo,  Cleveland,  and  Detroit,  I  now  see 
truth  in  what  the  boy  said. 

For  a  time  my  companion  and  I  sat  and  tried  to  make 
believe  we  did  n't  know  that  some  one  was  across  the 
aisle.  And  she  sat  there  and  played  with  pages  and 
made  believe  she  did  n't  know  we  made  believe.  \Yhen 
that  had  gone  on  for  a  time  and  our  train  was  slipping 

ii 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

silently  along  beside  the  Hudson,  we  felt  we  couldn't 
stand  it  any  longer,  so  we  made  believe  we  wanted  to 
go  out  and  smoke.  And  as  we  left  our  seats  she  made 
believe  she  did  n't  know  that  we  were  going. 

Four  men  were  seated  in  the  smoking  room.  Two 
were  discussing  the  merits  of  flannel  versus  linen  mesh 
for  winter  underwear.  The  gentleman  who  favored 
linen  mesh  was  a  fat,  prosperous-looking  person,  whose 
gold-rimmed  spectacles  reflected  flying  lights  from  out 
of  doors. 

"If  you  '11  wear  linen/'  he  declared  with  deep  con 
viction — "and  it  wants  to  be  a  union  suit,  too — you  '11 
never  go  back  to  shirt  and  drawers  again.  I  '11  guar 
antee  that!"  The  other  promised  to  try  it.  Pres 
ently  I  noticed  that  the  first  speaker  had  somehow  got 
ten  all  the  way  from  linen  union  suits  to  Portland,  Me., 
on  a  hot  Sunday  afternoon.  He  said  it  was  the  hottest 
day  last  year,  and  gave  the  date  and  temperatures  at 
certain  hours.  He  mentioned  his  wife's  weight,  details 
of  how  she  suffered  from  the  heat,  the  amount  of  flesh 
she  lost,  the  name  of  the  steamer  on  which  they  finally 
escaped  from  Portland  to  New  York,  the  time  of  leav 
ing  and  arrival,  and  many  other  little  things. 

I  left  him  on  the  dock  in  New  York.  A  friend  (name 
and  occupation  given)  had  met  him  with  a  touring  car 
(make  and  horsepower  specified).  What  happened 
after  that  I  do  not  know,  save  that  it  was  nothing  of 
importance.  Important  things  don't  happen  to  a  man 
like  that. 

12 


A  dusky  redcap  took  my  baggage 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

Two  other  men  of  somewhat  Oriental  aspect  were 
seated  on  the  leather  sofa  talking  the  unintelligible  jar 
gon  of  the  factory.  But,  presently,  emerged  an  anec 
dote. 

"I  was  going  through  our  sorting  room  a  while 
back/'  said  the  one  nearest  the  window,  "and  I  hap 
pened  to  take  notice  of  one  of  the  girls.  I  had  n't  seen 
her  before.  She  was  a  new  hand — a  mighty  pretty 
girl,  with  a  nice,  round  figure  and  a  fine  head  of  hair. 
She  kept  herself  neater  than  most  of  them  girls  do.  I 
says  to  myself:  Why,  if  you  was  to  take  that  girl  and 
dress  her  up  and  give  her  a  little  education  you  would  n't 
be  ashamed  to  take  her  anywheres.'  Well,  I  went  over 
to  her  table  and  I  says:  'Look  at  here,  little  girl;  you 
got  a  fine  head  of  hair  and  you  'd  ought  to  take  care  of 
it.  Why  don't  you  wear  a  cap  in  here  in  all  this  dust  ?' 
It  tickled  her  to  death  to  be  noticed  like  that.  And, 
sure  enough,  she  did  get  a  cap.  I  says  to  her :  'That 's 
the  dope,  little  girl.  Take  care  of  your  looks.  You  '11 
only  be  young  and  pretty  like  this  once,  you  know.'  So 
one  thing  led  to  another,  and  one  day,  a  while  later,  she 
come  up  to  the  office  to  see  about  her  time  slip  or  some 
thing,  and  I  jollied  her  a  little.  I  seen  she  was  a  pretty 
smart  kid  at  that,  so — "  At  that  point  he  lowered  his 
voice  to  a  whisper,  and  leaned  over  so  that  his  thick, 
smiling  lips  were  close  to  his  companion's  ear.  The 
motion  of  the  train  caused  their  hat  brims  to  interfere. 
Disturbed  by  this,  the  raconteur  removed  his  derby. 
His  head  was  absolutely  bald. 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Well,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  should  have  liked  to  hear 
the  rest.  I  shifted  my  attention  back  to  the  apostle  of 
the  linen  union  suit,  who  had  talked  on,  unremittingly. 
His  conversation  had,  at  least,  the  merit  of  entire  frank 
ness.  He  was  a  man  with  nothing  to  conceal. 

"Yes,  sir!"  I  heard  him  declare,  "every  time  you  get 
on  to  a  railroad  train  you  take  your  life  in  your  hands. 
That 's  a  positive  fact.  I  was  reading  it  up  just  the 
other  day.  We  had  almost  sixteen  thousand  accidents 
to  trains  in  this  country  last  year.  A  hundred  and 
thirty-nine  passengers  killed  and  between  nine  and  ten 
thousand  injured.  That 's  not  counting  employees, 
either — just  passengers  like  us."  He  emphasized  his 
statements  by  waving  a  fat  forefinger  beneath  the  lis 
tener's  nose,  and  I  noticed  that  the  latter  seemed  to  wish 
to  draw  his  head  back  out  of  range,  as  though  in  mo 
mentary  fear  of  a  collision. 

For  my  part,  I  did  not  care  for  these  statistics. 
They  were  not  pleasant  to  the  ears  of  one  on  the  first 
leg  of  a  long  railroad  journey.  I  rose,  aimed  the  end 
of  my  cigar  at  the  convenient  nickel-plated  receptacle 
provided  for  that  purpose  by  the  thoughtful  Pullman 
Company,  missed  it,  and  retired  from  the  smoking  room. 
Or,  rather,  I  emerged  and  went  to  luncheon. 

Our  charming  neighbor  of  the  parlor  car  was  already 
in  the  diner.  She  finished  luncheon  before  we  did,  and, 
passing  by  our  table  as  she  left,  held  her  chin  well  up 
and  kept  her  eyes  ahead  with  a  precision  almost  mili 
tary — almost,  but  not  quite.  Try  as  she  would,  she  was 

14 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

unable  to  control  a  slight  but  infinitely  gratifying  flicker 
of  the  eyelids,  in  which  nature  triumphed  over  training 
and  femininity  defeated  feministic  theory. 

A  little  later,  on  our  way  back  to  the  smoking  room, 
we  saw  her  seated,  as  before,  behind  the  sheltering  ram 
parts  of  her  magazine.  This  time  it  pleased  our  fancy 
to  take  the  austere  military  cue  from  her.  So  we  filed 
by  in  step,  as  stiff  as  any  guardsmen  on  parade  before 
a  princess  seated  on  a  green  plush  throne.  Resolutely 
she  kept  her  eyes  upon  the  page.  We  might  have 
thought  she  had  not  noticed  us  at  all  but  for  a  single 
sign.  She  uncrossed  her  knees  as  we  passed  by. 

In  the  smoking  room  we  entered  conversation  with 
a  young  man  who  was  sitting  by  the  window.  He 
proved  to  be  a  civil  engineer  from  Buffalo.  He  had 
lived  in  Buffalo  eight  years,  he  said,  without  having 
visited  Niagara  Falls.  ("I  've  been  meaning  to  go,  but 
I  Ve  kept  putting  it  off/')  But  in  New  York  he  had 
taken  time  to  go  to  Bedloe  Island  and  ascend  the  Statue 
of  Liberty.  ("It's  awfully  hot  in  there.")  Though 
my  companion  and  myself  had  lived  in  New  York  for 
many  years,  neither  of  us  had  been  to  Bedloe  Island. 
But  both  of  us  had  visited  the  Falls.  The  absurd  hu- 
manness  of  this  was  amusing  to  us  all ;  to  my  companion 
and  me  it  was  encouraging  as  well,  for  it  seemed  to  give 
us  ground  for  hope  that,  in  our  visits  to  strange  places, 
we  might  see  things  which  the  people  living  in  those 
places  fail  to  see. 

When,  after  finishing  our  smoke,  we  went  back  to 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

our  seats,  the  being  across  the  way  began  to  make  be 
lieve  to  read  again.  But  now  and  then,  when  some  one 
passed,  she  would  look  up  and  make  believe  she  wished 
to  see  who  it  might  be.  And  always,  after  doing  so, 
she  let  her  eyes  trail  casually  in  our  direction  ere  they 
sought  the  page  again.  And  always  we  were  thankful. 

As  the  train  slowed  down  for  Rochester  we  saw  her 
rise  and  get  into  her  slinky  little  coat.  The  porter 
came  and  took  her  Russia  leather  bag.  Meanwhile  we 
hoped  she  would  be  generous  enough  to  look  once  more 
before  she  left  the  car.  Only  once  more ! 

But  she  would  not.  I  think  she  had  a  feeling  that 
frivolity  should  cease  at  Rochester;  for  Rochester,  we 
somehow  sensed,  was  home  to  her.  At  all  events  she 
simply  turned  and  undulated  from  the  car. 

That  was  too  much !  Enough  of  make-believe !  With 
one  accord  we  swung  our  chairs  to  face  the  window. 
As  she  appeared  upon  the  platform  our  noses  almost 
touched  the  windowpane  and  our  eyes  sent  forth  for 
lorn  appeals.  She  knew  that  we  were  there,  yet 
walked  by  without  so  much  as  glancing  at  us. 

We  saw  a  lean  old  man  trot  up  to  her,  throw  one  arm 
about  her  shoulders,  and  kiss  her  warmly  on  the  cheek. 
Her  father — there  was  no  mistaking  that.  They  stood 
there  for  a  moment  on  the  platform  talking  eagerly; 
and  as  they  talked  they  turned  a  little  bit,  so  that  we  saw 
her  smiling  up  at  him. 

Then,  to  our  infinite  delight,  we  noticed  that  her  eyes 
were  slipping,  slipping.  First  they  slipped  down  to  her 

16 


•  *  • 

/ 

What  scenes  these  black,  pathetic  people  had  passed  through— were  passing 
through!     Why  did  they  not  look  up  in  wonderment? 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

father's  necktie.  Then  sidewise  to  his  shoulder,  where 
they  fluttered  for  an  instant,  while  she  tried  to  get  them 
under  control.  But  they  were  n't  the  kind  of  eyes  which 
are  amenable.  They  got  away  from  her  and,  with  a 
sudden  leap,  flashed  up  at  us  across  her  father's  shoul 
der!  The  minx!  She  even  flung  a  smile!  It  was 
just  a  little  smile — not  one  of  her  best — merely  the  frag 
ment  of  a  smile,  not  good  enough  for  father,  but  too 
good  to  throw  away. 

Well — it  was  not  thrown  away.  For  it  told  us  that 
she  knew  our  lives  had  been  made  brighter  by  her  pres 
ence — and  that  she  did  n't  mind  a  bit. 


Pushing  on  toward  Buffalo  as  night  was  falling, 
my  companion  and  I  discussed  the  fellow  travelers 
who  had  most  engaged  our  notice:  the  young  en 
gineer  from  Buffalo,  keen  and  alive,  with  a  quick  eye 
for  the  funny  side  of  things;  the  hairless  amorist;  the 
genial  bore,  whose  wife  (we  told  ourselves)  got  very 
tired  of  him  sometimes,  but  loved  him  just  because  he 
was  so  good ;  the  pretty  girl,  who  could  n't  make  her  eyes 
behave  because  she  was  a  pretty  girl.  We  guessed  what 
kind  of  house  each  one  resided  in,  the  kind  of  furniture 
they  had,  the  kind  of  pictures  on  the  walls,  the  kind  of 
books  they  read — or  did  n't  read.  And  I  believed  that 
we  guessed  right.  Did  we  not  even  know  what  sort  of 
underwear  encased  the  ample  figure  of  the  man  with  the 
amazing  memory  of  unessential  things?  And,  while 

17 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

touching  on  this  somewhat  delicate  subject,  were  we  not 
aware  that  if  the  alluring  being  who  left  the  train,  and 
us,  at  Rochester  possessed  the  once-so-necessary  gar 
ment  called  a  petticoat,  that  petticoat  was  hanging  in 
her  closet? 

All  this  I  mention  because  the  thought  occurred  to 
me  then  (and  it  has  kept  recurring  since)  that  places, 
no  less  than  persons,  have  characters  and  traits  and 
habits  of  their  own.  Just  as  there  are  colorless  people 
there  are  colorless  communities.  There  are  communi 
ties  which  are  strong,  self-confident,  aggressive;  others 
lazy  and  inert.  There  are  cities  which  are  cultivated; 
others  which  crave  "culture"  but  take  "culturine"  (like 
some  one  drinking  from  the  wrong  bottle)  ;  and  still 
others  almost  unaware,  as  yet,  that  esthetic  things  ex 
ist.  Some  cities  seem  to  fairly  smile  at  you ;  others  are 
glum  and  worried  like  men  who  are  ill,  or  oppressed  with 
business  troubles.  And  there  are  dowdy  cities  and 
fashionable  cities — the  latter  resembling  one  another  as 
fashionable  women  do..  Some  cities  seem  to  have  an 
active  sense  of  duty,  others  not.  And  almost  all 
cities,  like  almost  all  people,  appear  to  be  capable  alike 
of  baseness  and  nobility.  Some  cities  are  rich  and 
proud  like  self-made  millionaires ;  others,  by  comparison, 
are  poor.  But  let  me  digress  here  to  say  that,  though 
I  have  heard  mention  of  "hard  times"  at  certain  points 
along  my  way,  I  don't  believe  our  modern  generation 
knows  what  hard  times  really  are.  To  most  Americans 
the  term  appears  to  signify  that  life  is  hard  indeed  on 

18 


STEPPING  WESTWARD 

him  who  has  no  motor  car  or  who  goes  without  cham 
pagne  at  dinner. 

My  contacts  with  many  places  and  persons  I  shall 
mention  in  the  following  chapters  have,  of  necessity, 
been  brief.  I  have  hardly  more  than  glimpsed  them  as 
I  glimpsed  those  fellow  travelers  on  the  train.  There 
fore  I  shall  merely  try  to  give  you  some  impressions, 
from  a  sort  of  mental  sketchbook,  of  the  things  which 
I  have  seen  and  done  and  heard.  There  is  one  point 
in  particular  about  that  sketchbook :  in  it  I  have  reserved 
the  right  to  set  down  only  what  I  pleased.  It  has  been 
hard  to  do  that  sometimes.  People  have  pulled  me  this 
way  and  that,  telling  me  what  to  see  and  what  not  to 
see,  what  to  write  and  what  to  leave  out.  I  have  been 
urged,  for  instance,  to  write  about  the  varied  industries 
of  Cleveland,  the  parks  of  Milwaukee,  and  the  enormous 
red  apples  of  Louisiana,  Mo.  I  may  come  to  the  apples 
later  on,  for  I  ate  a  number  of  them  and  enjoyed  them ; 
but  the  varied  industries  of  Cleveland  and  the  Mil 
waukee  parks  I  did  not  eat. 

I  claim  the  further  right  to  ignore,  when  I  desire  to, 
the  most  important  things,  or  to  dwell  with  loving  pen 
upon  the  unimportant.  Indeed,  I  reserve  all  rights — 
even  to  the  right  to  be  perverse. 

Thus  I  shall  mention  things  which  people  told  me  not 
to  mention:  the  droll  Detroit  Art  Museum;  the  comic 
chimney  rising  from  the  center  of  a  Grand  Rapids  park ; 
horrendous  scenes  in  the  Chicago  stockyards;  the  Free 

19 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Bridge,  standing  useless  over  the  river  at  St.  Louis  for 
want  of  an  approach;  the  "wettest  block" — a  block  full 
of  saloons,  which  marks  the  dead  line  between  "wet" 
Kansas  City,  Mo.,  and  "dry"  Kansas  City,  Kas.  (I 
never  heard  about  that  block  until  a  stranger  wrote  and 
told  me  not  to  mention  it.) 

As  for  statistics,  though  I  have  been  loaded  with  them 
to  the  point  of  purchasing  another  trunk,  I  intend  to 
use  them  as  sparingly  as  possible.  •  And  every  time  I  use 
them  I  shall  groan. 


-CHAPTER  II 
BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

ALIGHTING  from  the  train  at  Buffalo,  I  was  re 
minded  of  my  earlier  reflection  that  railway  sta 
tions  should  express  their  cities.  In  Buffalo 
the  thought  is  painful.  If  that  city  were  in  fact,  ex 
pressed  by  its  present  railway  stations,  people  would 
not  get  off  there  voluntarily;  they  would  have  to  be  put 
off.  And  yet,  from  what  I  have  been  told,  the  curious 
and  particularly  ugly  relic  which  is  the  New  York  Cen 
tral  Station  there,  to-day,  does  tell  a  certain  story  of  the 
city.  Buffalo  has  long  been  torn  by  factional 
quarrels — among  them  a  protracted  fight  as  to  the  loca 
tion  of  a  modern  station  for  the  New  York  Central 
Lines.  The  East  Side  wants  it ;  the  West  Side  wants  it 
Neither  has  it.  The  old  station  still  stands — at  least  it 
was  standing  when  I  left  Buffalo,  for  I  was  very  careful 
not  to  bump  it  with  my  suit  case. 

This  difference  of  opinion  between  the  East  Side  and 
the  West  with  regard  to  the  placing  of  a  station  is,  I  am 
informed,  quite  typical  of  Buffalo.  Socially,  com 
mercially,  religiously,  politically,  the  two  sides  disagree. 
The  dividing  line  between  them,  geographically,  is  not, 
as  might  be  supposed,  Division  Street.  (That,  by  the 

21 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

way,  is  a  peculiarity  of  highways  called  "Division 
Street"  in  most  cities — they  seldom  divide  anything 
more  important  than  one  row  of  buildings  from  an 
other.)  The  real  street  of  division  is  called  Main. 

Main  Street!  How  many  American  towns  and 
cities  have  used  that  name,  and  what  a  stupid  name  it 
is !  It  is  as  characterless  as  a  number,  and  it  lacks  the 
number's  one  excuse  for  being.  If  names  like  Tenth 
Street  or  Eleventh  Avenue  fail  to  kindle  the  imagina 
tion  they  do  not  fail,  at  all  events,  to  help  the  stranger 
find  his  way — although  it  should  be  added  that 
strangers  do,  somehow,  manage  to  find  their  way  about 
in  London,  Paris,  and  even  Boston,  where  the  modern 
American  system  of  numbering  streets  and  avenues  is 
not  in  vogue.  But  I  am  not  agitating  against  the  num 
bering  of  streets.  Indeed,  I  fear  I  rather  believe  in  it, 
as  I  believe  in  certain  other  dull  but  useful  things  like 
work  and  government  reports.  What  I  am  crying  out 
about  is  the  stupid  naming  of  such  streets  as  carry 
names.  Why  do  we  have  so  many  Main  Streets?  Do 
you  think  we  lack  imagination  ?  Then  look  at  the  names 
of  Western  towns  and  Kansas  girls  and  Pullman  cars ! 
The  thing  is  an  enigma. 

Main  Street  is  not  only  a  bad  name  for  a  thorough 
fare;  the  quality  which  it  implies  is  unfortunate.  And 
that  quality  may  be  seen  in  Main  Street,  Buffalo.  On 
an  exaggerated  scale  that  street  is  like  the  Main  Street 
of  a  little  town,  for  the  business  district,  the  retail  shop 
ping  district,  all  the  city's  activities  string  along  on 

22 


It 


We  made  believe  we  wanted  to  go  out  and  smoke.     And  as  we  left 
our  seats  she  made  believe  she  did  n't  know  that  we  were  going 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

either  side.  It  is  bad  for  a  city  to  grow  in  that  elon 
gated  way  just  as  it  is  bad  for  a  human  being.  To 
either  it  imparts  a  kind  of  gawky  awkwardness. 

The  development  of  Main  Street,  Buffalo,  has  been 
natural.  That  is  just  the  trouble ;  it  has  been  too  natural. 
Originally  it  was  the  Iroquois  trail ;  later  the  route  fol 
lowed  by  the  stages  coming  from  the  East.  So  it  has 
grown  up  from  log-cabin  days.  It  is  a  fine,  broad  street ; 
all  that  it  lacks  is  "features."  It  runs  along  its  wide, 
monotonous  way  until  it  stops  in  the  squalid  surround 
ings  of  the  river;  and  if  the  river  did  not  happen  to 
be  there  to  stop  it,  it  would  go  on  and  on  developing, 
indefinitely,  and  uninterestingly,  in  that  direction  as 
well  as  in  the  other. 

The  thing  which  Buffalo  lacks  physically  is  a  recog 
nizable  center;  a  point  at  which  a  stranger  would  stop, 
as  he  stops  in  Piccadilly  Circus  or  the  Place  de  TOpera, 
and  say  to  himself  with  absolute  assurance:  "Now  I 
am  at  the  very  heart  of  the  city."  Every  city  ought  to 
have  a  center,  and  every  center  ought  to  signify  in  its 
spaciousness,  its  arrangement  and  its  architecture,  a 
city's  dignity.  Buffalo  is,  unfortunately,  far  from  be 
ing  alone  in  her  need  of  such  a  thing.  Where  Buffalo 
is  most  at  fault  is  that  she  does  not  even  seem  to  be 
thinking  of  municipal  distinction.  And  very  many 
other  cities  are.  Cleveland  is  already  attaining  it  in  a 
manner  which  will  be  magnificent;  Chicago  has  long 
planned  and  is  slowly  executing;  Denver  has  work  upon 
a  splendid  municipal  center  well  under  way;  so  has  San 

23 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Francisco;  St.  Louis,  Milwaukee,  and  Grand  Rapids 
have  plans  for  excellent  municipal  improvements. 
Even  St.  Paul  is  waking  up  and  widening  an  important 
business  street. 

Every  one  knows  that  what  is  called  "a  wave  of 
reform"  has  swept  across  the  country,  but  not  every 
one  seems  to  know  that  there  is  also  surging  over 
the  United  States  a  "wave"  of  improved  public 
taste.  I  shall  write  more  of  this  later.  Suffice  it  now 
to  say  that  it  manifests  itself  in  countless  forms:  in 
municipal  improvements  of  the  kind  of  which  the  Cleve 
land  center  is,  perhaps,  the  best  example  in  the  country ; 
in  architecture  of  all  classes ;  in  household  furniture  and 
decoration;  in  the  tendency  of  art  museums  to  realize 
that  modern  American  paintings  are  the  finest  modern 
paintings  obtainable  in  the  world  to-day ;  in  the  tendency 
of  private  art  collectors  not  to  buy  quite  so  much  rubbish 
as  they  have  bought  in  the  past ;  in  the  Panama-Pacific 
Exposition,  which  will  be  the  most  beautiful  exposition 
anybody  ever  saw ;  and  in  innumerable  other  ways.  In 
deed,  public  taste  in  the  United  States  has,  in  the  last 
ten  years,  taken  a  leap  forward  which  the  mind  of  to-day 
cannot  hope  to  measure.  The  advance  is  nothing  less 
than  marvelous,  and  it  is  reflected,  I  think,  in  every 
branch  of  art  excepting  one :  the  literary  art,  which  has 
in  our  day,  and  in  our  country,  reached  an  abysmal 
depth  of  degradation. 

With  Cleveland  so  near  at  hand  as  an  example,  and 

24 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

so  many  other  American  cities  thinking  about  civic 
beauty,  Buffalo  ought  soon  to  begin  to  rub  her  eyes,  look 
about,  and  cast  up  her  accounts.  Perhaps  her  trouble 
is  that  she  is  a  little  bit  too  prosperous  with  an  olden-time 
prosperity;  a  little  bit  too  somnolent  and  satisfied. 
There  is  plenty  to  eat;  business  is  not  so  bad;  there  are 
good  clubs,  and  there  is  a  delightful  social  life  and  a 
more  than  ordinary  degree  of  cultivation.  Further 
more,  there  may  be  a  new  station  for  the  New  York 
Central  some  day,  for  it  is  a  fact  that  there  are  now 
some  street  cars  which  actually  cross  Main  Street,  in 
stead  of  stopping  at  the  Rubicon  and  making  passengers 
get  out,  cross  on  foot,  and  take  the  other  car  on  the 
other  side !  That,  in  itself,  is  a  startling  state  of  things. 
Evidently  all  that  is  needed  now  is  an  earthquake. 


I  have  remarked  before  that  cities,  like  people, 
have  habits.  Just  as  Detroit  has  the  automobile 
habit,  Pittsburgh  the  steel  habit,  Erie,  Pa.,  the  boiler 
habit,  Grand  Rapids  the  furniture  habit,  and  Louis 
ville  the  (if  one  may  say  so)  whisky  habit,  Buffalo 
had  in  earlier  times  the  transportation  habit.  The 
first  fortunes  made  in  Buffalo  came  originally  from  the 
old  Central  Wharf,  where  toll  was  taken  of  the  pass 
ing  commerce.  Hand  in  hand  with  shipping  came  that 
business  known  by  the  unpleasant  name  of  "jobbing." 
From  the  opening  of  the  Erie  Canal  until  the  late  seven 
ties,  jobbing  flourished  in  Buffalo,  but  of  recent  years 

25 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

her  jobbing  territory  has  diminished  as  competition 
with  surrounding  centers  has  increased. 

The  early  profits  from  docks  and  shipping  were  con 
siderable.  The  business  was  easy;  it  involved  com 
paratively  small  investment  and  but  little  risk.  So  when, 
with  the  introduction  of  through  bills  of  lading,  this 
business  dwindled,  it  was  hard  for  Buffalo  to  readjust 
herself  to  more  daring  ventures,  such  as  manufactur 
ing.  "For/'  as  a  Buffalo  man  remarked  to  me,  "there 
is  only  one  thing  more  timid  than  a  million  dollars,  and 
that  is  two  million."  It  was  the  same  gentleman,  I 
think,  who,  in  comparing  the  Buffalo  of  to-day  with  the 
Buffalo  of  other  days,  called  my  attention  to  the  fact 
that  not  one  man  in  the  city  is  a  director  of  a  steam  rail 
road  company. 

From  her  geographical  position  with  regard  to  ore, 
limestone,  and  coal  it  would  seem  that  Buffalo  might 
well  become  a  great  iron  and  steel  city  like  Cleveland, 
but  for  some  reason  her  ventures  in  this  direction  have 
been  unfortunate.  One  steel  company  in  which  Buffalo 
money  was  invested,  failed;  another  has  been  struggling 
along  for  some  years  and  has  not  so  far  proved  profit 
able.  Some  Buffalonians  made  money  in  a  land  boom 
a  dozen  or  so  years  since;  then  came  the  panic,  and  the 
boom  burst  with  a  loud  report,  right  in  Buffalo's  face. 

Back  of  most  of  this  trouble  there  seems  to  have  been 
a  streak  of  real  ill  luck. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  money  in  Buffalo,  but  it  is 
wary  money — financial  wariness  seems  to  be  another 

26 


The  gentleman  who  favored  linen  mesh  was  a  fat,  prosperous-looking  person, 
whose  gold-rimmed    spectacles   reflected  flying  lights   from   out   of   doSrs 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

Buffalo  habit.  And  there  are  other  cities  with  the  same 
characteristic.  You  can  tell  them  because,  when  you 
begin  to  ask  about  various  enterprises,  people  will  say : 
"No,  we  have  n't  this  and  we  have  n't  that,  but  this  is 
a  safe  town  in  times  of  financial  panic."  That  is  what 
they  say  in  Buffalo ;  they  also  say  it  in  St.  Louis  and  St. 
Paul.  But  if  they  say  it  in  Chicago,  or  Minneapolis,  or 
Kansas  City,  or  in  those  lively  cities  of  the  Pacific  slope, 
I  did  not  hear  them.  Those  cities  are  not  worrying 
about  financial  panics  which  may  come  some  day,  but 
are  busy  with  the  things  which  are. 

If  you  ask  a  Buffalo  man  what  is  the  matter  with  his 
city,  he  will,  very  likely,  sit  down  with  great  solemnity 
and  try  to  tell  you,  and  even  call  a  friend  to  help  him,  so 
as  to  be  sure  that  nothing  is  overlooked.  He  may  tell 
you  that  the  city  lacks  one  great  big  dominating  man  to 
lead  it  into  action ;  or  that  there  has  been,  until  recently, 
lack  of  cooperation  between  the  banks ;  or  that  there  are 
ninety  or  a  hundred  thousand  Poles  in  the  city  and  only 
about  the  same  number  of  people  springing  from  what 
may  be  called  "old  American  stock."  Or  he  may  tell 
you  something  else. 

If,  upon  the  other  hand,  you  ask  a  Minneapolis  man 
that  question,  what  will  he  do?  He  will  look  at  you 
pityingly  and  think  you  are  demented.  Then  he  will 
tell  you  very  positively  that  there  is  nothing  the  matter 
with  Minneapolis,  but  that  there  is  something  definitely 
the  matter  with  any  one  who  thinks  there  is !  Yes,  in- 

27 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

deed !  If  you  want  to  find  out  what  is  the  matter  with 
Minneapolis,  it  is  still  necessary  to  go  for  information  to 
St.  Paul.  As  you  proceed  westward,  such  a  question 
becomes  increasingly  dangerous. 

Ask  a  Kansas  City  man  what  is  wrong  with  his  town 
and  he  will  probably  attack  you;  and  as  for  Los 
Angeles — !  Such  a  question  in  Los  Angeles  would 
mean  the  calling  out  of  the  National  Guard,  the  Cham 
ber  of  Commerce,  the  Rotary  Club,  and  all  the  "  boost 
ers"  (which  is  to  say  the  entire  population  of  the  city)  ; 
the  declaring  of  martial  law,  a  trial  by  summary  court- 
martial,  and  your  immediate  execution.  The  manner 
of  your  execution  would  depend  upon  the  phrasing  of 
your  question.  If  you  had  asked:  "Is  there  anything 
wrong  with  Los  Angeles  ?"  they  'd  probably  be  content 
with  selling  you  a  city  lot  and  then  hanging  you ;  but  if 
you  said:  "What  is  wrong  with  Los  Angeles?''  they 
would  burn  you  at  the  stake  and  pickle  your  remains  in 
vitriol. 

At  this  juncture  I  find  myself  oppressed  with  the 
idea  that  I  have  n't  done  Buffalo  justice.  Also,  I 
am  annoyed  to  discover  that  I  have  written  a  great 
deal  about  business.  When  I  write  about  business  I 
am  almost  certain  to  be  wrong.  I  dislike  business 
very  much — almost  as  much  as  I  dislike  politics — and 
the  idea  of  infringing  upon  the  field  of  friends  of  mine 
like  Lincoln  Steffens,  Ray  Stannard  Baker,  Miss  Tar- 
bell,  Samuel  Hopkins  Adams,  Will  Irwin,  and  others, 

28 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

is  extremely  distasteful  to  me.  But  here  is  the  trouble : 
so  many  writers  have  run  a-muckraking  that,  nowa 
days,  when  a  writer  appears  in  any  American  city,  every 
one  assumes  that  he  is  scouting  around  in  search  of 
"shame."  The  result  is  that  you  don't  have  to  hunt  for 
shame.  People  bring  it  to  you  by  the  cartload.  They 
don't  give  you  time  to  explain  that  you  are  n't  a  shame 
collector — that  you  don't  even  know  a  good  piece  of 
shame  wfhen  you  see  it — they  just  drive  up,  dump  it  at 
your  door,  and  go  back  to  get  another  load. 

My  companion  and  I  were  new  at  the  game  in  Buffalo. 
As  the  loads  of  shame  began  to  arrive,  we  had  a  feel 
ing  that  something  was  going  wrong  with  our  trip.  We 
had  come  in  search  of  cheerful  adventure,  yet  here  we 
were  barricaded  in  by  great  bulwarks  of  shame.  In  a 
few  hours  there  was  enough  shame  around  us  to  have 
lasted  all  the  reformers  and  muckrakers  I  know  a  whole 
month.  We  could  n't  see  over  the  top  of  it.  It  hypno 
tized  us.  We  began  to  think  that  probably  shame  was 
what  we  wanted,  after  all.  Every  one  we  met  assumed 
it  was  what  we  wanted,  and  when  enough  people  assume 
a  certain  thing  about  you  it  is  very  difficult  to  buck 
against  them.  By  the  second  day  we  had  ceased  to  be 
human  and  had  begun  to  act  like  muckrakers.  We  be 
came  solemn,  silent,  mysterious.  We  would  pick  up  a 
piece  of  shame,  examine  it,  say  "Ha!"  and  stick  it  in 
our  pockets.  When  some  white-faced  Buffalonian 
would  drive  up  with  another  load  of  shame  I  would  go 
up  to  him,  wave  my  finger  under  his  nose  and,  trying  to 

29 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

look  as  much  like  Steffens  as  I  could,  say  in  a  sepulchral 
voice:  "Come!  Out  with  it!  What  are  you  holding 
back?  Tell  me  all!  Who  tore  up  the  missing  will?" 
Then  that  poor,  honest,  terrified  Buffalonian  would 
gasp  and  try  to  tell  me  all,  between  his  chattering  teeth. 
And  when  he  had  told  me  all  I  would  continue  to  glare 
at  him  horribly,  and  ask  for  more.  Then  he  would  be 
gin  making  up  stories,  inventing  the  most  frightful  and 
shocking  lies  so  as  not  to  disappoint  me.  I  would  print 
some  of  them  here,  but  I  have  forgotten  them.  That 
is  the  trouble  with  the  amateur  muckraker  or  re 
former.  His  mind  is  n't  trained  to  his  work.  He  is 
constantly  allowing  it  to  be  diverted  by  some  pleasant 
thing. 

For  instance,  some  one  pointed  out  to  me  that  the 
water  front  of  the  city,  along  the  Niagara  River,  is  so 
taken  up  by  the  railroads  that  the  public  does  not  get 
the  benefit  of  that  water  life  which  adds  so  much  to 
the  charm  of  Cleveland  and  Detroit.  That  situation 
struck  me  as  affording  an  excellent  piece  of  muck  to 
rake.  For  is  n't  it  always  the  open  season  so  far  as  rail 
roads  are  concerned? 

I  ought  to  have  kept  my  mind  on  that,  but  in 
my  childlike  way  I  let  myself  go  ambling  off  through 
the  parks.  I  found  the  parks  delightful,  and  in  one  of 
them  I  came  upon  a  beautiful  Greek  temple,  built  of 
marble  and  containing  a  collection  of  paintings  of  which 
any  city  should  be  proud.  Now  that  is  a  disconcerting 
sort  of  thing  to  find  when  you  have  just  abandoned  your- 

30 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

self  to  the  idea  of  becoming  a  muckraker!     How  can 
you  muckrake  a  gallery  like  that  ?     It  can't  be  done. 


With  the  possible  exception  of  the  Chicago  Art 
Institute  my  companion  and  I  did  not  see,  upon 
our  entire  journey,  any  gallery  of  art  in  which  such 
good  judgment  had  been  shown  in  the  selection  of 
paintings  as  in  the  Albright  Gallery  in  Buffalo. 
Though  the  Chicago  Art  Institute  is  much  the  larger  and 
richer  museum,  and  though  its  collection  is  more  com-, 
prehensive,  its  modern  art  is  far  more  heterogeneous 
than  that  of  Buffalo.  One  admires  that  Albright  Gal 
lery  not  only  for  the  paintings  which  hang  upon  its 
walls,  but  also  for  those  which  do  not  hang  there. 
Judgment  has  been  shown  not  only  in  selecting  paint 
ings  but  (one  concludes)  in  rejecting  gifts.  I  do  not 
know  that  the  Albright  Gallery  has  rejected  gifts,  but 
I  do  know  that  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  in  New 
York  and  the  Chicago  Art  Institute  have,  at  times,  failed 
to  reject  gifts  which  should  have  been  rejected.  Almost 
all  museums  fail  in  that  respect  in  their  early  days.  When 
a  rich  man  offers  a  bad  painting,  or  a  roomful  of  bad 
paintings,  the  museum  is  afraid  to  say  "No,"  because 
rich  men  must  be  propitiated.  That  has  been  the  curse 
of  art  museums ;  they  have  to  depend  on  rich  men  for 
support.  And  rich  men,  however  generous  they  may  be, 
and  however  much  they  may  be  interested  in  art,  are, 
for  the  most  part,  lacking  in  any  true  and  deep  under- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

standing  of  it.  That  is  one  trouble  with  being  rich — 
it  does  n't  give  you  time  to  be  much  of  anything  else. 
If  rich  men  really  did  know  art,  there  would  not  be  so 
many  art  dealers,  and  so  many  art  dealers  would  not 
be  going  to  expensive  tailors  and  riding  in  expensive 
limousines. 

Those  who  control  the  Albright  Gallery  have  been 
wise  enough  to  specialize  in  modern  American  painting. 
They  have  not  been  impressed,  as  so  many  Americans 
still  are  impressed,  by  the  sound  of  the  word  "Europe." 
Nor  have  they  attempted  to  secure  old  masters. 

Does  it  not  seem  a  mistake  for  any  museum  not  pos 
sessed  of  enormous  wealth  to  attempt  a  collection  of  old 
masters?  A  really  fine  example  of  the  work  of  an  old 
master  ties  up  a  vast  amount  of  money,  and,  however 
splendid  it  may  be,  it  is  only  one  canvas,  after  all;  and 
one  or  two  or  three  old  masters  do  not  make  a  repre 
sentative  collection.  Rather,  it  seems  to  me,  they  tend 
to  disturb  balance  in  a  small  museum. 

To  many  American  ears  "Europe"  is  still  a  magic 
word.  It  makes  little  difference  that  Europe  remains 
the  happy  hunting  ground  of  the  advanced  social 
climber;  but  it  makes  a  good  deal  of  difference  that  so 
many  American  students  of  the  arts  continue  to  believe 
that  there  is  some  mystic  thing  to  be  gotten  over  there 
which  is  unobtainable  at  home.  Europe  has  done  much 
for  us  and  can  still  do  much  for  us,  but  we  must  learn 
not  to  accept  blindly  as  we  have  in  the  past.  Until  quite 
recently,  American  art  museums  did,  for  the  most  part, 

32 


II 

3  3 

* 


3 
O 

d 

orq 

3* 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

buy  European  art  which  was  in  many  instances  abso 
lutely  inferior  to  the  art  produced  at  home.  And  unless 
I  am  very  much  mistaken  a  third-rate  portrait  painter, 
with  a  European  name  (and  a  clever  dealer  to  push 
him)  can  still  come  over  here  and  reap  a  harvest  of 
thousands  while  Americans  with  more  ability  are  mak 
ing  hundreds. 

One  of  the  brightest  signs  for  American  painting  to 
day  is  the  fact  that  it  is  now  found  profitable  to  make  and 
sell  forgeries  of  the  works  of  our  most  distinguished 
modern  artists — even  living  ones.  This  is  a  new  and 
encouraging  situation.  A  few  years  ago  it  was  hardly 
worth  a  forger's  time  to  make,  say,  a  false  Hassam, 
when  he  might  just  as  well  be  making  a  Corot — which 
reminds  me  of  an  amusing  thing  a  painter  said  to  me 
the  other  day. 

We  were  passing  through  an  art  gallery,  when  I  hap 
pened  to  see  at  the  end  of  one  room  three  canvases  in 
the  familiar  manner  of  Corot. 

"What  a  lot  of  Corots  there  are  in  this  country,"  I 
remarked. 

"Yes,"  he  replied.  "Of  the  ten  thousand  canvases 
painted  by  Corot,  there  are  thirty  thousand  in  the  United 
States." 

There  are  two  interesting  hotels  in  Buffalo.  One, 
the  Iroquois,  is  characterized  by  a  kind  of  solid  dignity 
and  has  for  years  enjoyed  a  high  reputation.  It 
is  patronized  to-day  at  luncheon  time  by  many  of 

33 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Buffalo's  leading  business  men.  Another,  the  Statler,  is 
more  "commercial"  in  character.  My  companion  and 
I  happened  to  stop  at  the  latter,  and  we  became  very 
much  interested  in  certain  things  about  it.  For  one 
thing,  every  room  in  the  hotel  has  running  ice  water  and 
a  bath — either  a  tub  or  a  shower.  Everywhere  in 
that  hotel  we  saw  signs.  At  the  desk,  when  we  entered, 
hung  a  sign  which  read:  Clerk  on  duty,  Mr.  Pratt. 

There  were  signs  in  our  bedrooms,  too.  I  don't  re 
member  all  of  them,  but  there  was  one  bearing  the  genial 
invitation:  Criticise  and  suggest  for  the  improvement 
of  our .  service.  Complaint  and  suggestion  box  in 
lobby. 

While  I  was  in  that  hotel  I  had  nothing  to  "criticize 
and  suggest,"  but  I  have  been  in  other  hotels  where,  if 
such  an  invitation  had  been  extended  to  me,  I  should 
have  stuffed  the  box. 

Besides  the  signs,  we  found  in  each  of  our  rooms  the 
following:  a  clothes  brush;  a  card  bearing  on  one  side 
a  calendar  and  on  the  other  side  a  list  of  all  trains  leav 
ing  Buffalo,  and  their  times  of  departure;  a  memoran 
dum  pad  and  pencil  by  the  telephone;  a  Bible  ("Placed 
in  this  hotel  by  the  Gideons"),  and  a  pincushion,  con 
taining  not  only  a  variety  of  pins  (including  a  large 
safety  pin),  but  also  needles  threaded  with  black  thread 
and  white,  and  buttons  of  different  kinds,  even  to  a  sus 
pender  button. 

But  aside  from  the  prompt  service  we  received,  I 
think  the  thing  which  pleased  us  most  about  that  hotel 

34 


My  companion  and  I  made  excuses  to  go  downstairs  and  wash 
our  hands  in  the  public  washroom,  just  for  the  pleasure  of  doing 
so  without  fear  of  being  attacked  by  a  swarthy  brigand  with 
a  brush 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

was  a  large  sign  in  the  public  wash  room,  downstairs. 
Had  I  come  from  the  West  I  am  not  sure  that  sign 
would  have  startled  me  so  much,  but  coming  from  New 
York — !  Well,  this  is  what  it  said: 

Believing  that  voluntary  service  in  washrooms  is  dis 
tasteful  to  guests,  attendants  are  instructed  to  give  no 
service  which  the  guest  does  not  ask  for. 

Time  and  again,  while  we  were  in  Buffalo,  my  com 
panion  and  I  made  excuses  to  go  downstairs  and  wash 
our  hands  in  the  public  washroom,  just  for  the  pleasure 
of  doing  so  without  fear  of  being  attacked  by  a  swarthy 
brigand  with  a  brush.  We  became  positively  fond  of 
the  melancholy  washroom  boy  in  that  hotel.  There 
was  something  pathetic  in  the  way  he  stood  around  wait 
ing  for  some  one  to  say:  "Brush  me!"  Day  after 
day  he  pursued  his  policy  of  watchful  waiting,  hoping 
against  hope  that  something  would  happen — that  some 
one  would  fall  down  in  the  mud  and  really  need  to 
be  brushed;  that  some  one  would  take  pity  on  him 
and  let  himself  be  brushed  anyhow.  The  pathos  of 
that  boy's  predicament  began  to  affect  us  deeply. 
Finally  we  decided,  just  before  leaving  Buffalo,  to  go 
downstairs  and  let  him  brush  us.  We  did  so.  When 
we  asked  him  to  do  it  he  went  very  white  at  first. 
Then,  with  a  glad  cry,  he  leaped  at  us  and  did  his 
work.  It  was  a  real  brushing  we  got  that  day — not 
a  mere  slap  on  the  back  with  a  whisk  broom,  mean 
ing  "Stand  and  deliver!"  but  the  kind  of  brushing 

35 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

that  takes  the  dust  out  of  your  clothes.  The  wash  room 
was  full  of  dust  before  he  got  through.  Great  clouds 
of  it  went  floating  up  the  stairs,  filling  the  hotel  lobby 
and  making  everybody  sneeze.  When  he  finished  we 
were  renovated.  "How  much  do  you  think  we  ought  to 
give  him  for  all  this  ?"  I  asked  of  my  companion. 

"If  the  conventional  dime  which  we  give  the  wash 
room  boys  in  New  York  hotels/'  he  replied,  "is  proper 
payment  for  the  services  they  render,  I  should  say  we 
ought  to  give  this  boy  about  twenty-seven  dollars." 


There  are  many  other  things  about  Buffalo  which 
should  be  mentioned.  There  is  the  Buffalo  Club — the 
dignified,  solid  old  club  of  the  city;  and  there  is  the 
Saturn  Club,  "where  women  cease  from  troubling  and 
the  wicked  are  at  rest."  And  there  is  Delaware  Ave 
nue,  on  which  stand  both  these  clubs,  and  many  of  the 
city's  finest  homes. 

Unlike  certain  famous  old  residence  streets  in  other 
cities,  Delaware  Avenue  still  holds  out  against  the  en 
croachments  of  trade.  It  is  a  wide,  fine  street  of  trees 
and  lawns  and  residences.  Despite  the  fact  that  many 
of  its  older  houses  are  of  the  ugly  though  substantial 
architecture  of  the  sixties,  seventies,  and  eighties,  and 
many  of  its  newer  ones  lack  architectural  distinction, 
the  general  effect  of  Delaware  Avenue  is  still  fine  and 
American. 

My  impression  of  this  celebrated  street  was  neces- 

36 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

sarily  hurried,  having  been  acquired  in  the  course  oi 
sundry  dashes  down  its  length  in  motor  cars.  I  recall 
a  number  of  its  buildings  only  vaguely  now,  but  there 
is  one  which  I  admired  every  time  I  saw  it,  and  which 
still  clings  in  my  memory  both  as  a  building  and  as  a 
sermon  on  the  enduring  beauty  of  simplicity  and  good, 
old-fashioned  lines — the  office  of  Spencer  Kellogg  & 
Sons,  at  the  corner  of  Niagara  Square. 


It  happened  that  just  before  we  left  New  York  there 
was  a  newspaper  talk  about  some  rich  women  who 
had  organized  a  movement  of  protest  against  the  ever- 
increasing  American  tendency  toward  show  and  ex 
travagance.  We  were,  therefore,  doubly  interested 
when  we  heard  of  a  similar  activity  on  the  part  of  cer 
tain  fashionable  women  of  Buffalo. 

Our  hostess  at  a  dinner  party  there  was  the  first  to 
mention  it,  but  several  other  ladies  added  details.  They 
had  formed  a  few  days  before  a  society  called  the  "Sim 
plicity  League,"  the  members  of  which  bound  them 
selves  to  give  each  other  moral  support  in  their  efforts 
to  return  to  a  more  primitive  mode  of  life.  I  cannot  re 
call  now  whether  the  topic  came  up  before  or  after  the 
butler  and  the  footman  came  around  with  caviar  and 
cocktails,  but  I  know  that  I  had  learned  a  lot  about  it 
from  charming  and  enthusiastic  ladies  at  either  side  of 
me  before  the  sherry  had  come  on ;  that,  by  the  time  the 
sauterne  was  served,  I  was  deeply  impressed,  and  that, 

37 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

with  the  roast  and  the  Burgundy,  I  was  prepared  to  take 
the  field  against  all  comers,  not  only  in  favor  of  sim 
plicity,  but  in  favor  of  anything  and  everything  which 
was  favored  by  my  hostess.  Throughout  the  salad,  the 
ices,  the  Turkish  coffee,  and  the  Corona-coronas  I  re 
mained  her  champion,  while  with  the  port — ah !  nothing, 
it  seems  to  me,  recommends  the  old  order  of  things  quite 
so  thoroughly  as  old  port,  which  has  in  it  a  sermon  and 
a  song.  After  dinner  the  ladies  told  us  more  about 
their  league. 

"We  don't  intend  to  go  to  any  foolish  extremes,"  said 
one  who  looked  like  the  apotheosis  of  the  Rue  de  la 
Paix.  "We  are  only  going  to  scale  things  down  and 
eliminate  waste.  There  is  a  lot  of  useless  show  in  this 
country  which  only  makes  it  hard  for  people  who  can't 
afford  things.  And  even  for  those  who  can,  it  is  wrong. 
Take  the  matter  of  dress — a  dress  can  be  simple  without 
looking  cheap.  And  it  is  the  same  with  a  dinner.  A 
dinner  can  be  delicious  without  being  elaborate.  Take 
this  little  dinner  we  had  to-night — " 

"What?"  I  cried. 

"Yes,"  she  nodded.  "In  future  we  are  all  going  to 
give  plain  little  dinners  like  this." 

"Plain?"  I  gasped. 

Our  hostess  overheard  my  choking  cry. 

"Yes,"  she  put  in.  "You  see,  the  league  is  going  to 
practise  what  it  preaches." 

"But  I  did  n't  think  it  had  begun  yet !  I  thought  this 
dinner  was  a  kind  of  farewell  feast — that  it  was — " 

38 


I  was  prepared  to  take  the  field  against  all  comers,  not  only  in  favor  of 
simplicity,  but  in  favor  of  anything  and  everything  which  was  favored  by 
my  hostess 


BIFURCATED  BUFFALO 

Our  hostess  looked  grieved.  The  other  ladies  of  the 
league  gazed  at  me  reproachfully. 

"Why!"  I  heard  one  exclaim  to  another,  "I  don't  be 
lieve  he  noticed!" 

"Did  n't  you  notice  ?"  asked  my  hostess. 

I  was  cornered. 

"Notice?"  I  asked.     "Notice  what?" 

"That  we  did  n't  have  champagne !"  she  said. 


39 


CHAPTER  III 
CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

BEFORE  leaving  home  we  were  presented  with  a 
variety  of  gifts,  ranging  all  the  way  from  ear 
muffs  to  advice.  Having  some  regard  for  the 
esthetic,  we  threw  away  the  ear  muffs,  determining  to 
buy  ourselves  fur  caps  when  we  should  need  them. 
But  the  advice  \ve  could  not  throw  away ;  it  stuck  to  us 
like  a  poor  relation. 

In  the  parlor  car,  on  the  way  from  Buffalo  to  Cleve 
land,  our  minds  got  running  on  sad  subjects. 

"We  have  come  out  to  find  interesting  things — to  have 
adventures/'  said  my  blithe  companion.  "Now  sup 
posing  we  go  on  and  on  and  nothing  happens.  What 
will  we  do  then  ?  The  publishers  will  have  spent  all  this 
money  for  our  traveling,  and  what  will  they  get?" 

I  told  him  that,  in  such  an  event,  we  would  make  up 
adventures. 

"What,  for  instance?"  he  demanded. 

I  thought  for  a  time.     Then  I  said: 

"Here  's  a  good  scheme — we  could  begin  now,  right 
here  in  this  car.  You  act  like  a  crazy  man.  I  will  be 
your  keeper.  You  run  up  and  down  the  aisle  shout 
ing — talk  wildly  to  these  people — stamp  on  your  hat — • 

40 


CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

do  anything  you  like.  It  will  interest  the  passengers 
and  give  us  something  nice  to  write  about.  And  you 
could  make  a  picture  of  yourself,  too." 

Instead  of  appreciating  that  suggestion  he  was  an 
noyed  with  me,  so  I  ventured  something  else. 

"How  would  it  be  for  you  to  beat  a  policeman  on 
the  helmet?" 

He  did  n't  care  for  that  either. 

"Why  don't  you  think  of  something  for  yourself  to 
do?"  he  said,  somewhat  sourly. 

"All  right,"  I  returned.  "I  'm  willing  to  do  my  share. 
I  will  poison  you  and  get  arrested  for  it." 

"If  you  do  that,"  he  criticized,  "who  will  make  the 
pictures?" 

I  saw  that  he  was  in  a  humor  to  find  fault  with  any 
thing  I  proposed,  so  I  let  him  ramble  on.  He  had  a 
regular  orgy  of  imaginary  disaster,  running  all  the  way 
from  train  wrecks,  in  which  I  was  killed  and  he  was 
saved  only  to  have  the  bother  and  expense  of  shipping 
my  remains  home,  to  fires  in  which  my  notebooks  were 
burned  up,  leaving  on  his  hands  a  lot  of  superb  but  use 
less  drawings. 

After  a  time  he  suggested  that  we  make  up  a  list  of 
the  things  we  had  been  warned  of.  I  did  not  wish  to 
do  it,  but,  acting  on  the  theory  that  fever  must  run  its 
course,  I  agreed,  so  we  took  paper  and  pencil  and  began. 
It  required  about  two  hours  to  get  everything  down,  be 
ginning  with  Aches,  Actresses,  Adenoids,  Alcoholism, 
Amnesia,  Arson,  etc.,  and  running  on,  through  the 

41 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

alphabet    to    Zero    weather,    Zolaism,    and    Zymosis. 

After  looking  over  the  category,  my  companion  said : 

"The  trouble  with  this  list  is  that  it  does  n't  present 
things  in  the  order  in  which  they  may  reasonably  be  ex 
pected  to  occur.  For  instance,  you  might  get  zymosis, 
or  attempt  to  write  like  Zola,  at  almost  any  time,  yet 
those  two  dangers  are  down  at  the  bottom  of  the  list. 
On  the  other  hand,  things  like  actresses,  alcoholism,  and 
arson  seem  remote.  We  must  rearrange." 

I  thought  it  wise  to  give  in  to  him,  so  we  set  to  work 
again.  This  time  we  made  two  lists:  one  of  general 
dangers — things  which  might  overtake  us  almost  any 
where,  such  as  scarlet  fever,  hardening  of  the  arteries, 
softening  of  the  brain,  and  "road  shows"  from  the  New 
York  Winter  Garden ;  another  arranged  geographically, 
according  to  our  route.  Thus,  for  example,  instead  of 
listing  Elbert  Hubbard  under  the  letter  "H,"  we  ele 
vated  him  to  first  place,  because  he  lives  near  Buffalo, 
which  was  our  first  stop. 

I  did  n't  want  to  put  down  Hubbard's  name  at  all — I 
thought  it  would  please  him  too  much  if  he  ever  heard 
about  it.  I  said  to  my  companion : 

"We  have  already  passed  Buffalo.  And,  besides, 
there  are  some  things  which  the  instinct  of  self-preser 
vation  causes  one  to  recollect  without  the  aid  of  any 
list." 

"I  know  it,"  he  returned,  stubbornly,  "but,  in  the  in 
terest  of  science,  I  wish  this  list  to  be  complete." 

So  we  put  down  everything:  Elbert  Hubbard, 

42 


Chamber  of  Commerce  representatives  were  with  us 
all  the  first  day  and  until  we  went  to  our  rooms,  late 
at  night 


CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

Herbert  Kaufman,  Eva  Tanguay,  Upton  Sinclair,  and 
all. 

A  few  selected  items  from  our  geographical  list  may 
interest  the  reader  as  giving  him  some  idea  of  the  loca 
tions  of  certain  things  we  had  to  fear.  For  example, 
west  of  Chicago  we  listed  Oysters,  and  north  of  Chi 
cago  Frozen  Ears  and  Frozen  Noses — the  latter  two 
representing  the  dangers  of  the  Minnesota  winter.  So 
our  list  ran  on  until  it  reached  the  point  where  we  would 
cross  the  Great  Divide,  at  which  place  the  word  "Boost 
ers"  was  writ  large. 

I  recall  now  that,  according  to  our  geographical  ar 
rangement,  there  was  n't  much  to  be  afraid  of  until  we 
got  beyond  Chicago,  and  that  the  first  thing  we  looked 
forward  to  with  real  dread  was  the  cold  in  Minnesota. 
We  dreaded  it  more  than  arson,  because  if  some  one  sets 
fire  to  your  ear  or  your  nose,  you  know  it  right  away, 
and  can  send  in  an  alarm;  but  cold  is  sneaky.  It  seems, 
from  what  they  say,  that  you  can  go  along  the  street, 
feeling  perfectly  well,  and  with  no  idea  that  anything  is 
going  wrong  with  you,  until  some  experienced  resident 
of  the  place  touches  you  upon  the  arm  and  says :  "Ex 
cuse  me,  sir,  but  you  have  dropped  something."  Then 
you  look  around,  surprised,  and  there  is  your  ear,  lying 
on  the  sidewalk.  But  that  is  not  the  worst  of  it.  Be 
fore  you  can  thank  the  man,  or  pick  your  ear  up  and  dust 
it  off,  some  one  will  very  likely  come  along  and  step  on  it. 
I  do  not  think  they  do  it  purposely;  they  are  simply  care 
less  about  where  they  walk.  But  whether  it  happens  by 

43 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

accident  or  design,  whether  the  ear  is  spoiled  or  not, 
whether  or  not  you  be  wearing  your  ear  at  the  time  of 
the  occurrence — in  any  case  there  is  something  exceed 
ingly  offensive,  to  the  average  man,  in  the  idea  of  a  total 
stranger's  walking  on  his  ear. 

I  mention  this  to  point  a  moral.  However  prepared 
we  may  be,  in  life,  we  are  always  unprepared.  How 
ever  informed  we  may  be,  we  are  always  uninformed. 
We  gaze  up  at  the  sky,  dreading  to-morrow's  rain,  and 
slip  upon  to-day's  banana  peel.  We  move  toward  Cleve 
land  dreading  the  Minnesota  winter  which  is  yet  far  off, 
having  no  thought  of  the  "booster,"  whom  we  believe 
to  be  still  farther  off.  And  what  happens?  We  step 
from  the  train,  all  innocent  and  trusting,  and  then,  ah, 
then ! 

If  it  be  true,  indeed,  that  the  "booster"  flour 
ishes  more  furiously  the  farther  west  you  find  him,  let 
me  say  (and  I  say  it  after  having  visited  California, 
Oregon,  and  Washington)  that  Cleveland  must  be  newly 
located  upon  the  map.  For,  if  "boosting"  be  a  western 
industry,  Cleveland  is  not  an  Ohio  city,  nor  even  a 
Pacific  Slope  city,  but  is  an  island  out  in  the  midst  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean. 

Nor  is  this  a  mere  opinion  of  my  own.  Upon  the  mas- 
todonic  brow  of  the  Cleveland  Chamber  of  Commerce 
there  hangs  an  official  laurel  wreath.  The  New  York 
Bureau  of  Municipal  Research  invited  votes  from  the 
secretaries  of  Chambers  of  Commerce  and  similar  or- 

44 


CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

ganizations  in  thirty  leading  cities,  as  to  which  of  these 
bodies  had  accomplished  most  for  its  city,  industrially, 
commercially,  etc.  Cleveland  won. 

No  one  who  has  caromed  against  the  Cleveland  Cham 
ber  of  Commerce  will  wonder  that  Cleveland  won.  All 
other  Chambers  of  Commerce  I  have  met,  sink  into 
desuetude  and  insignificance  when  compared  with  that 
of  Cleveland.  Where  others  merely  "boost,"  Cleveland 
"boosts"  intensively.  She  can  raise  more  bushels  of 
statistics  to  the  acre  than  other  cities  can  quarts.  And 
the  more  Cleveland  statistics  you  hear,  the  more  you 
become  amazed  that  you  do  not  live  there.  It  seems 
reckless  not  to  do  so.  The  Cleveland  Chamber  of  Com 
merce  can  prove  this  to  you  not  merely  with  figures, 
but  also  with  figures  of  speech. 

Take  the  matter  of  population.  Everybody  knows 
that  Cleveland  is  the  "Sixth  City"  in  the  United  States, 
but  not  everybody  knows  that  in  1850  she  was  forty- 
third.  The  Chamber  of  Commerce  told  me  that,  but  I 
have  prepared  some  figures  of  my  own  which  will,  per 
haps,  give  the  reader  some  idea  of  Cleveland's  magni 
tude.  Cleveland  is  only  a  little  smaller  than  Prague, 
while  she  has  about  50,000  more  people  than  Breslau. 

If  that  does  not  impress  you  with  the  city's  size,  listen 
to  this :  Cleveland  is  actually  twice  as  great,  in  popula 
tion,  as  either  Nagoya  or  Riga!  Who  would  have  be 
lieved  it?  The  thing  seems  incredible!  I  never 
dreamed  that  such  a  situation  existed  until  I  looked  it 
up  in  the  "World  Almanac."  And  some  day,  when  I 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

have  more  time,  I  intend  to  look  up  Nagoya  and  Riga  in 
the  atlas  and  find  out  where  they  are. 

A  Chamber  of  Commerce  booklet  gives  me  the  fur 
ther  information  that  "Cleveland  is  the  fifth  American 
city  in  manufactures,  and  that  she  comes  first  in  the 
manufacture  of  steel  ships,  heavy  machinery,  wire  and 
wire  nails,  bolts  and  nuts,  vapor  stoves,  electric  carbons, 
malleable  castings,  and  telescopes" — a  list  which,  by  the 
way,  sounds  like  one  of  Lewis  Carroll's  compilations. 

The  information  that  Cleveland  is  also  the  first  city 
in  the  world  in  its  record,  per  capita,  for  divorce,  does 
not  come  to  me  from  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  book 
let — but  probably  the  fact  was  not  known  when  the  book 
let  was  printed. 

Besides  being  first  in  so  many  interesting  fields,  Cleve 
land  is  the  second  of  the  Great  Lake  cities,  and  is  also 
second  in  "the  value  of  its  product  of  women's  outer 
wearing  apparel  and  fancy  knit  goods. " 

It  is,  furthermore,  "the  cheapest  market  in  the  North 
for  pig  iron." 

There  are  other  figures  I  could  give  (saving  myself  a 
lot  of  trouble,  at  the  same  time,  because  I  only  have  to 
copy  them  from  a  book),  but  I  want  to  stop  and  let  that 
pig-iron  statement  sink  into  you  as  it  sank  into  me  when 
I  first  read  it.  I  wonder  if  you  knew  it  before?  I  am 
ashamed  to  admit  it,  but  7  did  not.  I  did  n't  consider 
where  I  could  get  my  pig  iron  the  cheapest.  When  I 
wanted  pig  iron  I  simply  went  out  and  bought  it,  at 
the  nearest  place,  right  in  New  York.  That  is,  I 

46 


It  is  an  Elizabethan  building,  with  a  heavy  timbered 
front,  suggesting  some  ancient,  hospitable,  London  coffee 
house  where  wits  of  old  were  used  to  meet 


CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

bought  it  in  New  York  unless  I  happened  to  be  traveling 
when  the  craving  came  upon  me.  In  that  case  I  would 
buy  a  small  supply  wherever  I  happened  to  be — just 
enough  to  last  me  until  I  could  get  home  again.  I  don't 
know  how  pig  iron  affects  you,  but  with  me  it  acts  pe 
culiarly.  Sometimes  I  go  along  for  weeks  without  even 
thinking  of  it;  then,  suddenly,  I  feel  that  I  must  have 
some  at  once — even  if  it  is  the  middle  of  the  night.  Of 
course  a  man  does  n't  care  what  he  pays  for  his  pig  iron 
when  he  feels  like  that.  But  in  my  soberer  moments  I 
now  realize  that  it  is  best  to  be  economical  in  such  mat 
ters.  The  wisest  plan  is  to  order  enough  pig  iron  from 
Cleveland  to  keep  you  for  several  months,  being  careful 
to  notice  when  the  supply  is  running  low,  so  that  you 
can  order  another  case. 

Apropos  of  this  let  me  say  here,  in  response  to  many 
inquiries  as  to  what  the  nature  of  this  work  of  mine 
would  be,  that  I  intend  it  to  be  "useful  as  well  as  orna 
mental" — to  quote  the  happy  phrase,  coined  by  James 
Montgomery  Flagg.  That  is,  I  intend  not  only  to  en 
tertain  and  instruct  the  reader  but,  where  opportunity 
offers,  to  give  him  the  benefit  of  good  sound  advice, 
such  as  I  have  just  given  with  regard  to  the  purchasing 
of  pig  iron. 


47 


CHAPTER  IV 
MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

BECAUSE  I  have  told  you  so  much  about  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  you  must  not  assume 
that  the  Chamber  of  Commerce  was  with  us 
constantly  while  we  were  in  Cleveland,  for  that 
is  not  the  case.  True,  Chamber  of  Commerce  rep 
resentatives  were  with  us  all  the  first  day  and  until 
we  went  to  our  rooms,  late  at  night.  But  at 
our  rooms  they  left  us,  merely  taking  the  precau 
tion  to  lock  us  in.  No  attempt  was  made  to  assist 
us  in  undressing  or  to  hear  our  prayers  or  tuck  us 
into  bed.  Once  in  our  rooms  we  were  left  to  our 
own  devices.  We  were  allowed  to  read  a  little,  if  we 
wished,  to  whisper  together,  or  even  to  amuse  ourselves 
by  playing  with  the  fixtures  in  the  bathroom. 

On  the  morning  of  the  second  day  they  came  and  let 
us  out,  and  took  us  to  see  a  lot  of  interesting  and  edify 
ing  sights,  but  by  afternoon  they  had  acquired  sufficient 
confidence  in  us  to  turn  us  loose  for  a  couple  of  hours, 
allowing  us  to  roam  about,  at  large,  while  they  attended 
to  their  mail. 

We  made  use  of  the  freedom  thus  extended  to  us  by 
presenting  several  letters  of  introduction  to  Cleveland 
gentlemen,  who  took  us  to  various  clubs. 

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MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

Almost  every  large  city  in  the  country  has  one  solid, 
dignified  old  club,  occupying  a  solid,  dignified  old  build 
ing  on  a  corner  near  the  busy  part  of  town.  The  build 
ing  is  always  recognizable,  even  to  a  stranger.  It  sug 
gests"  a  fine  cuisine,  an  excellent  wine  cellar,  and  a  great 
variety  of  good  cigars  in  prime  condition.  In  the  front 
of  such  a  club  there  are  large  windows  of  plate  glass, 
back  of  which  the  passer-by  may  catch  a  glimpse  of  a 
trim  white  mustache  and  a  silk  hat.  Looking  at  the 
outside  of  the  building,  you  know  that  there  is  a  big, 
high-ceiled  room,  at  the  front,  dark  in  color  and  con 
taining  spacious  leather  chairs,  which  should  (and  often 
do)  contain  aristocratic  gentlemen  who  have  attained 
years  of  discretion  and  positions  of  importance.  One 
feels  cheated  if,  on  entering,  one  fails  to  encounter  a 
member  carrying  a  malacca  stick  and  wearing  waxed 
mustaches,  spats,  and  a  gardenia.  The  Union  Club  of 
New  York  is  such  a  club ;  so  is  the  Pacific  Union  of  San 
Francisco ;  so  is  the  Chicago  Club ;  and  so,  I  fancy,  from 
my  glimpse  of  it,  is  the  Union  Club  of  Cleveland. 

In  the  larger  cities  there  is  usually  another  club,  some 
what  less  formal  in  architecture,  decoration,  and  spirit, 
and  given  over,  broadly  speaking,  to  the  younger  men — 
though  there  is  often  a  good  deal  of  duplication  of  mem 
bership  between  the  first  mentioned  type  of  club  and  the 
second.  The  Tavern  of  Cleveland  is  of  the  second 
category;  so  is  the  Saturn  Club  of  Buffalo,  of  which  I 
spoke  in  a  former  chapter.  Almost  every  good-sized 
city  has,  likewise,  its  university  club,  its  athletic  club,  and 

49 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

its  country  club.  University  clubs  vary  a  good  deal  in 
character,  but  athletic  clubs  and  country  clubs  are  in 
general  pretty  true  to  type. 

Besides  such  clubs  as  these,  one  finds,  here  and  there, 
in  the  United  States,  a  few  clubs  of  a  character  more  un 
usual.  Cleveland  has  three  unusual  clubs :  the  Rowf  ant, 
a  book  collector's  club;  the  Chagrin  Valley  Hunt  Club, 
at  Gates  Mills,  near  the  city,  and  the  Hermit  Club. 

Were  it  not  for  the  fact  that  I  detest  the  words 
"artistic"  and  "bohemian,"  I  should  apply  them  to  the 
Hermit  Club.  It  is  one  of  the  few  clubs  outside  New 
York,  Chicago,  and  San  Francisco  possessing  its  own 
house  and  made  up  largely  of  men  following  the  arts,  or 
interested  in  them.  Like  the  Lambs  of  New  York,  the 
Hermits  give  shows  in  their  clubhouse,  but  the  Lambs' 
is  a  club  of  actors,  authors,  composers,  stage  managers, 
etc.,  while  the  Hermit  Club  is  made  up,  so  far  as  the 
theater  is  concerned,  of  amateurs — amateurs  having 
among  them  sufficient  talent  to  write  and  act  their  own 
shows,  design  their  own  costumes,  paint  their  own  scen 
ery,  compose  their  own  music,  and  even  play  it,  too — 
for  there  is  an  orchestra  of  members.  I  have  never  seen 
a  Hermits'  show,  and  I  am  sorry,  for  I  have  heard  that 
they  are  worth  seeing.  Certainly  their  clubhouse  is. 
It  is  an  Elizabethan  building,  with  a  heavy  timbered 
front,  suggesting  some  ancient,  hospitable,  London 
coffee  house  where  wits  of  old  were  used  to  meet.  This 
illusion  is  enhanced  by  the  surroundings  of  the  club,  for 
it  stands  in  an  alley — or  perhaps  I  had  better  say  a  nar- 

50 


MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

row  lane — and  is  huddled  down  between  the  walls  of 
taller  buildings. 

The  pleasant  promise  of  the  exterior  is  fulfilled  within. 
The  ground  floor  rooms  are  low  and  cozy,  and  have  a 
pleasant  "rambling"  feeling — a  step  or  two  up  here  or 
down  there.  The  stairway,  leading  to  the  floor  above, 
is  narrow,  with  a  genial  kind  of  narrowness  that  seems 
to  say :  "There  is  no  one  here  with  whom  you  '11  mind 
rubbing  elbows  as  you  pass."  Ascending,  you  reach  the 
main  room,  which  occupies  the  entire  upper  floor.  This 
room  is  the  Hermit  Club.  It  is  here  that  members 
gather  and  that  the  more  intimate  shows  are  given. 
Large,  with  dark  panels,  and  heavy  beams  which  spring 
up  and  lose  themselves  in  warm  shadows  overhead,  it  is 
a  room  combining  dignity  with  gracious  informality. 
And  let  me  add  that,  to  my  mind,  such  a  combination 
is  at  once  rare  and  desirable  in  a  club  building — or,  for 
the  matter  of  that,  in  a  home  or  a  human  being.  A 
club  which  is  too  informal  is  likely  to  seem  trivial;  a 
club  too  dignified,  austere.  A  club  should  neither  seem 
to  be  a  joke,  nor  yet  a  mausoleum.  If  it  be  magnifi 
cent,  it  should  not,  at  least,  overwhelm  one  with  its  mag 
nificence;  it  should  not  chill  one  with  its  grandeur,  so 
that  one  lowers  one's  voice  to  a  whisper  and  involun 
tarily  removes  one's  hat. 

In  some  clubs  a  man  leaves  his  hat  upon  his  head  or 
takes  it  off,  as  he  prefers.  In  others  custom  demands 
that  he  remove  it.  Some  men  will  argue  that  if  you 
give  a  man  his  choice  in  that  matter  he  feels  more  at 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

home;  others  contend  that  if  he  takes  his  hat  off  he  will, 
at  all  events,  look  more  at  home,  whereas,  if  he  leaves  it 
on  he  will  look  more  as  though  he  were  in  a  hotel.  These 
are  matters  of  opinion.  There  are  many  pleasant  clubs 
which  differ  on  this  minor  point.  But  I  do  not  think 
that  any  club  may  be  called  pleasant  in  which  a  man  is 
inclined  to  take  off  his  hat  instinctively  because  of  an  air 
of  grim  formality  which  he  encounters  on  entering  the 
door.  To  make  an  Irish  bull  upon  this  subject,  one  of 
the  nicest  things  that  I  remember  of  the  Hermit  Club  is 
that  I  don't  remember  whether  we  wore  our  hats  while 
there  or  not. 

The  Chagrin  Valley  Hunt  Club  lies  in  a  pleasant  val 
ley  which  acquired  its  name  through  the  error  of  a 
pioneer  (General  Moses  Cleveland  himself,  if  I  remem 
ber  rightly)  who,  when  sailing  up  Lake  Erie,  landed  at 
this  point,  mistaking  it  for  the  site  of  Cleveland,  farther 
on,  and  was  hence  chagrined.  Here,  more  than  a  hun 
dred  years  ago,  the  little  village  of  Gates  Mills  was  set 
tled  by  men  whose  buildings,  left  behind  them,  still  pro 
claim  their  New  England  origin.  If  ever  I  saw  a  Con- 
.necticut  village  outside  the  State  of  Connecticut,  that 
village  is  Gates  Mills,  Ohio.  Low  white  farmhouses, 
with  picturesque  doorways  and  small  windows  divided 
into  many  panes,  straggle  pleasantly  along  on  either  side 
of  the  winding  country  road,  and  there  is  even  an  old 
meeting  house,  with  a  spire  such  as  you  may  see  in  many 
a  New  England  hamlet. 

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MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

The  old  Gates  house,  which  was  built  in  1812  by  the 
miller  from  whom  the  place  took  its  name,  is  passing  a 
mellow  old  age  as  the  house  of  the  Hunt  Club.  In  this 
charming,  homelike  old  building,  with  its  grandfather's 
clock,  its  Windsor  chairs,  and  its  open  wood  fires,  a 
visitor  finds  its  hard  to  realize  that  he  is  actually  in  a 
portion  of  the  country  which  is  still  referred  to,  in  New 
York,  as  "the  west." 

The  Connecticut  resemblance  is  accounted  for  by  the 
fact  that  all  this  section  of  the  country  was  in  the  West 
ern  Reserve,  which  belonged  to,  and  was  settled  by, 
Connecticut.  Thus  travel  teaches  us!  I  knew  prac 
tically  nothing,  until  then,  of  the  Western  Reserve,  and 
even  less  of  hunt  clubs.  I  had  never  been  in  a  hunt 
club  before,  and  my  impressions  of  such  institutions 
had  been  gleaned  entirely  from  short  stories  and  from 
prints  showing  rosy  old  rascals  drinking.  Probably 
because  of  these  prints  I  had  always  thought  that 
"horsey"  people — particularly  the  "hunting  set" — were 
generally  addicted  to  the  extensive  (and  not  merely 
external)  use  of  alcohol.  As  others  may  be  of  the  same 
impression  it  is  perhaps  worth  remarking  that,  while 
in  the  Hunt  Club,  we  saw  a  number  of  persons  drinking 
tea,  and  that  only  two  were  drinking  alcoholic  bever 
ages — those  two  being  visitors:  an  illustrator  and 
a  writer  from  New  York. 

I  mentioned  that  to  the  M.  F.  H.,  and  told  him  of  my 
earlier  impression  as  to  hunt-club  habits. 

"Lots  of  people  have  that  idea,"  he  smiled,  "but  it  is 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

wrong.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  few  hunting  people  are 
teetotalers,  but  those  who  ride  straight  are  almost  in 
variably  temperate.  They  have  to  be.  You  can't  be 
in  the  saddle  six  or  eight  hours  at  a  stretch,  riding  across 
country,  and  do  it  on  alcohol." 

I  also  learned  from  the  M.  F.  H.  certain  interesting 
things  regarding  a  fox's  scent.  Without  having 
thought  upon  the  subject,  I  had  somehow  acquired  the 
idea  that  hounds  got  the  scent  from  the  actual  tracks  of 
the  animal  they  followed.  That  is  not  so.  The  scent 
comes  from  the  body  of  the  fox  and  is  left  behind  him 
suspended  in  the  air.  And,  other  conditions  being 
equal,  the  harder  your  fox  runs  the  stronger  his  scent 
will  be.  The  most  favorable  scent  for  following  is  what 
is  known  as  a  "breast-high  scent" — meaning  a  scent 
which  hangs  in  suspension  at  a  point  sufficiently  high  to 
render  it  unnecessary  for  the  hounds  to  put  their  heads 
down  to  the  ground.  Sometimes  a  scent  hangs  low; 
sometimes,  on  the  other  hand,  it  rises  so  that,  particu 
larly  in  a  covert,  the  riders,  seated  upon  their  horses, 
can  smell  it,  while  the  hounds  cannot. 

But  I  think  I  have  said  enough  about  this  kind  of 
thing.  It  is  a  dangerous  topic,  for  the  terminology  and 
etiquette  of  hunting  are  even  more  elaborate  than  those 
of  golf.  Probably  I  have  made  some  mistake  already ;  in 
deed,  I  know  of  one  which  I  just  escaped — I  started  to 
write  "dogs"  instead  of  "hounds,"  and  that  is  not  done. 
I  have  a  horror  of  displaying  my  ignorance  on  matters 
of  this  kind.  For  I  take  a  kind  of  pride — and  I  think 

54 


MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

most  men  do — in  being  correct  about  comparatively  un 
important  things.  It  is  permissible  to  be  wrong  about 
important  things,  such  as  politics,  finance,  and  reform, 
and  to  explain  them,  although  you  really  know  nothing 
about  them.  But  with  fox  hunting  it  is  different. 
There  are  some  people  who  really  do  know  about  that, 
and  they  are  likely  to  catch  you. 

Two  other  Cleveland  organizations  should  be  men 
tioned. 

Troop  A  of  the  Ohio  National  Guard  is  known  as  one 
of  the  most  capable  bodies  of  militia  in  the  entire  coun 
try.  It  has  been  in  existence  for  some  forty  years,  and 
its  membership  has  always  been  recruited  from  among 
the  older  and  wealthier  families  of  the  city.  The  fame 
of  Troop  A  has  reached  beyond  Ohio,  for  under  its  pop 
ular  title,  "The  Black  Horse  Troop/'  it  has  gone  three 
times  to  Washington  to  act  as  escort  to  Presidents  of 
the  United  States  at  the  time  of  their  inauguration. 
Cleveland  is,  furthermore,  the  headquarters  for  trot 
ting  racing.  The  Cleveland  Gentlemen's  Driving  Club 
is  an  old  and  exceedingly  active  body,  and  its  president, 
Mr.  Harry  K.  Devereux,  is  also  president  of  the  Na 
tional  Trotting  Association. 


A  curious  and  characteristic  thing  which  we  encoun 
tered  in  no  other  city  is  the  Three-Cent  Cult — a  legacy 
left  to  the  city  by  the  late  Tom  Johnson.  Cleveland's 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

street  railway  system  is  controlled  by  the  city  and 
the  fare  is  not  five  cents,  but  three.  But  that  is 
not  all.  A  municipal  lighting  plant  is,  or  soon  will  be, 
in  operation,  with  charges  of  from  one  to  three  cents 
per  kilowatt  hour.  Also  the  city  has  gone  into  the 
dance-hall  business.  There,  too,  the  usual  rate  is  cut: 
fifteen  cents  will  buy  five  dances  in  the  municipal  dance 
halls,  instead  of  three.  No  one  will  attempt  to  dispute 
that  dancing,  to-day,  takes  precedence  over  the  mere 
matter  of  eating,  yet  it  is  worth  mentioning  that  the 
Three-Cent  Cult  has  even  found  its  way  into  the  lunch 
room.  Sandwiches  may  be  purchased  in  Cleveland  for 
three  cents  which  are  not  any  worse  than  five-cent  sand 
wiches  in  other  cities. 

Perhaps  the  finest  thing  about  the  Three-Cent  Cult  is 
the  fact  that  it  runs  counter  to  one  of  the  most  pro 
nounced  and  pitiable  traits  of  our  race:  wastefulness. 
Sometimes  it  seems  that,  as  a  people,  we  take  less  pride 
in  what  we  save  than  in  what  we  throw  away.  We 
have  a  "There  9s  more  where  that  came  from !"  attitude 
of  mind.  A  man  with  thousands  a  year  says:  "Hell! 
What 's  a  hundred  ?"  and  a  man  with  hundreds  imitates 
him  on  a  smaller  scale.  The  humble  fraction  of  a  nickel 
is  despised.  All  honor,  then,  to  Cleveland — the  city 
which  teaches  her  people  that  two  cents  is  worth  saving, 
and  then  helps  them  to  save  it.  Two  points,  in  this  con 
nection,  are  interesting: 

One,  that  Cleveland  has  been  trying  to  induce  the 
Treasury  Department  to  resume  the  coinage  of  a  three- 

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MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

cent  piece;  another,  that  the  percentage  of  depositors 
in  savings  banks  in  Cleveland,  in  proportion  to  the 
population,  is  higher  than  in  most  other  cities.  And, 
by  the  way,  the  savings  banks  pay  4  per  cent. 


We  were  taken  in  automobiles  from  one  end  of  the 
city  to  the  other.  Down  by  the  docks  we  saw  gi 
gantic,  strange  machines,  expressive  of  Cleveland's 
lake  commerce — machines  for  loading  and  unloading 
ships  in  the  space  of  a  few  hours.  One  type  of  ma 
chine  would  take  a  regular  steel  coal  car  in  its  enor 
mous  claws  and  turn  that  car  over,  emptying  the  load  of 
coal  into  a  ship  as  you  might  empty  a  cup  of  flour  with 
your  hand.  Then  it  would  set  the  car  down  again,  right 
side  up,  upon  the  track,  only  to  snatch  the  next  one  and 
repeat  the  operation. 

Another  machine  for  unloading  ore  would  send  its 
great  steel  hands  down  into  the  vessel's  hold,  snatch 
them  up  filled  with  tons  of  the  precious  product  of  the 
mines,  and,  reaching  around  backward,  drop  the  load 
into  a  waiting  railroad  car.  The  present  Great  Lakes 
record  for  loading  is  held  by  the  steamer  Corry,  which 
has  taken  on  a  cargo  of  10,000  tons  of  ore  in  twenty- 
five  minutes.  The  record  for  unloading  is  held  by  the 
George  F.  Perkins,  from  which  a  cargo  of  10,250  tons 
of  ore  was  removed  in  two  hours  and  forty-five  minutes. 

Some  of  the  largest  steamers  of  the  Great  Lakes  may 
be  compared,  in  size,  with  ocean  liners.  A  modern  ore 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

boat  is  a  steel  shell  more  than  six  hundred  feet  long,  with 
a  little  space  set  aside  at  the  bows  for  quarters  and  a 
little  space  astern  for  engines.  The  deck  is  a  series 
of  enormous  hatches,  so  that  practically  the  entire  top 
of  the  ship  may  be  removed  in  order  to  facilitate  loading 
and  unloading.  As  these  great  vessels  (many  of  which 
are  built  in  Cleveland,  by  the  way)  are  laid  up  through 
out  the  winter,  when  navigation  on  the  Great  Lakes  is 
closed,  it  is  the  custom  to  drive  them  hard  dur 
ing  the  open  season.  Some  of  them  make  as  many 
as  thirty  trips  in  the  eight  months  of  their  activity,  and 
an  idea  of  the  volume  of  their  traffic  may  be  gotten 
from  the  statement  that  "the  iron-ore  tonnage  of  the 
Cleveland  district  is  greater  than  the  total  tonnage  of 
exports  and  imports  at  New  York  Harbor."  One  of 
the  little  books  about  Cleveland,  which  they  gave  me, 
makes  that  statement.  It  does  not  sound  as  though  it 
could  be  true,  but  I  do  not  think  they  would  dare  print 
untruths  about  a  thing  like  that,  no  matter  how  anxious 
they  might  be  to  "boost."  However,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to 
add  that  the  same  books  says :  "Fifty  per  cent,  of  the 
population  of  the  United  States  and  Canada  lies  within 
a  radius  of  five  hundred  miles  of  Cleveland." 


I  find  that  when  I  try  to  recall  to  my  mind  the  pic 
ture  of  a  city,  I  think  of  certain  streets  which,  for  one 
reason  or  another,  engraved  themselves  more  deeply 
than  other  streets  upon  my  memory.  One  of  my  clear- 

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est  mental  photographs  of  Cleveland  is  of  endless 
streets  of  homes. 

Now,  although  I  saw  many  houses,  large  and  small, 
possessing  real  beauty — most  of  them  along  the  boule 
vards,  in  the  Wade  Park  Allotment  or  on  Euclid 
Heights,  where  modern  taste  has  had  its  opportunity — 
it  is  nevertheless  true  that,  for  some  curious  reason  con 
nected  with  the  workings  of  the  mind,  those  streets  which 
I  remember  best,  after  some  months  of  absence,  are  not 
the  streets  possessed  of  the  most  charm. 

I  remember  vividly,  for  instance,  my  disappointment 
on  viewing  the  decay  of  Euclid  Avenue,  which  I  had 
heard  compared  with  Delaware,  in  Buffalo,  and  which, 
in  reality,  does  not  compare  with  it  at  all,  being  rather 
run  down,  and  lined  with  those  architectural  monstrosi 
ties  of  the  70*8  which,  instead  of  mellowing  into  respect 
able  antiquity,  have  the  unhappy  faculty  of  becoming 
more  horrible  with  time,  like  old  painted  harridans. 
Another  vivid  recollection  is  of  a  sad  monotony  of 
streets,  differing  only  in  name,  containing  blocks 
and  blocks  and  miles  and  miles  of  humble  wooden 
homes,  all  very  much  alike  in  their  uninteresting  dupli 
cation. 

These  memories  would  make  my  mental  Cleveland  pic 
ture  somewhat  sad,  were  it  not  for  another  recollection 
which  dominates  the  picture  and  glorifies  the  city.  This 
recollection,  too,  has  to  do  with  squalid  thoroughfares, 
but  in  a  different  way. 

Down  near  the  railroad  station,  where  the  "red-light 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

district"  used  to  be,  there  has  long  stood  a  tract  of  sev 
eral  blocks  of  little  buildings,  dismal  and  dilapidated. 
They  are  coming  down.  Some  of  them  have  come 
down.  And  there,  in  that  place  which  was  the  home  of 
ugliness  and  vice,  there  now  shows  the  beginning  of  the 
city's  Municipal  Group  Plan.  This  plan  is  one  of  the 
finest  things  which  any  city  in  the  land  has  contem 
plated  for  its  own  beautification.  In  this  country  it 
was,  at  the  time  it  originated,  unique ;  and  though  other 
cities  (such  as  Denver  and  San  Francisco)  are  now  at 
work  on  similar  improvements,  the  Cleveland  plan  re 
mains,  I  believe,  the  most  imposing  and  the  most  com 
plete  of  its  kind. 

When  an  American  city  has  needed  some  new  pub 
lic  building  it  has  been  the  custom,  in  the  past,  for  the 
politicians  to  settle  on  a  site,  and  cause  plans  to  be  drawn 
(by  their  cousins),  and  cause  those  plans  to  be  executed 
(by  their  brothers-in-law).  This  may  have  been  "prac 
tical  politics,"  but  it  has  hardly  resulted  in  practical  city 
improvement. 

No  one  will  dispute  the  convenience  of  having  public 
buildings  "handy"  to  one  another,  but  there  may  still 
be  found,  even  in  Cleveland,  men  whose  feeling  for 
beauty  is  not  so  highly  developed  as  their  feeling  for 
finance;  men  who  shake  their  heads  at  the  mention  of 
a  group  plan;  who  don't  like  to  "see  all  that  money 
wasted."  I  met  one  or  two  such.  But  I  will  venture 
the  prophecy  that,  when  the  Cleveland  plan  is  a  little 
farther  advanced,  so  that  the  eye  can  realize  the  amaz- 

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MORE  CLEVELAND  CHARACTERISTICS 

ing  splendor  of  the  thing,  as  it  will  ultimately  be,  there 
will  be  no  one  left  in  Cleveland  to  convert. 

It  is  a  fine  and  unusual  thing,  in  itself,  for  an  Amer 
ican  city  to  be  planning  its  own  beauty  fifty  years  ahead. 
Cleveland  is  almost  un-American  in  that!  But  when 
the  work  is  done — yes,  and  before  it  is  done — this  single 
great  improvement  will  have  transformed  Cleveland 
from  an  ordinary  looking  city  to  one  of  great  distinc 
tion. 

Fancy  emerging  from  a  splendid  railway  station  to 
find  yourself  facing,  not  the  little  bars  and  dingy  build 
ings  which  so  often  face  a  station,  but  a  splendid  mall, 
two  thousand  feet  long  and  six  hundred  wide,  parked  in 
the  center  and  surrounded  by  fine  buildings  of  even 
cornice  height  and  harmonious  classical  design.  At  one 
side  of  the  station  will  stand  the  public  library;  at  the 
other  the  Federal  building;  and  at  the  far  extremity  of 
the  mall,  the  county  building  and  the  city  hall. 

Three  of  these  buildings  are  already  standing.  Two 
more  are  under  way.  The  plan  is  no  longer  a  mere  plan 
but  is  already,  in  part,  an  actuality. 

When  the  transformation  is  complete  Cleveland  will 
not  only  have  remade  herself  but  will  have  set  a  mag 
nificent  example  to  other  cities.  By  that  time  she 
may  have  ceased  to  call  herself  "Sixth  City" — for  pop 
ulation  changes.  But  if  a  hundred  other  cities  follow 
her  with  group  plans,  and  whether  those  plans  be  of 
greater  magnitude  or  less,  it  must  never  be  forgotten 
that  Cleveland  had  the  appreciation  and  the  courage  to 

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begin  the  movement  in  America,  not  merely  on  paper 
but  in  stone  and  marble,  and  that,  without  regard  to 
population,  she  therefore  has  a  certain  right,  to-day,  to 
call  herself  "First  City." 


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MICHIGAN  MEANDERINGS 


CHAPTER  V 
DETROIT  THE  DYNAMIC 

BECAUSE  Buffalo,  Cleveland,  and  Detroit  are,  in 
effect,  situated  upon  Lake  Erie,  and  because 
they  are  cities  of  approximately  the  same  size, 
and  because  of  many  other  resemblances  between  them, 
they  always  seem  to  me  like  three  sisters  living  amicably 
in  three  separate  houses  on  the  same  block. 

As  I  personify  them,  Buffalo,  living  at  the  eastern 
end  of  the  block,  is  the  smallest  sister.  She  has,  I  fear, 
a  slight  tendency  to  be  anemic.  Her  husband,  who  was 
in  the  shipping  business,  is  getting  old.  He  has  re 
tired  and  is  living  in  contentment  in  the  old  house,  sit 
ting  all  day  on  the  side  porch,  behind  the  vines,  with  his 
slippers  cocked  up  on  the  porch  rail,  smoking  cigars  and 
reading  his  newspapers  in  peace. 

Cleveland  is  the  fat  sister.  She  is  very  rich,  having 
married  into  the  Rockefeller  family.  She  is  placid,  sat 
isfied,  dogmatically  religious,  and  inclined  to  platitudes 
and  missionary  work.  Her  house,  in  the  middle  of  the 
block,  is  a  mansion  of  the  seventies.  It  has  a  cupola  and 
there  are  iron  fences  on  the  roof,  as  though  to  keep  the 
birds  from  falling  off.  The  lawn  is  decorated  with  a 

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pair  of  iron  dogs.  But  there  are  plans  in  the  old  house 
for  a  new  one. 

The  first  two  sisters  have  a  kind  of  family  resem 
blance  which  the  third  does  not  fully  share.  Detroit 
seems  younger  than  her  sisters.  Indeed,  you  might  al 
most  mistake  her  for  one  of  their  daughters.  The  belle 
of  the  family,  she  is  married  to  a  young  man  who  is 
making  piles  of  money  in  the  automobile  business — and 
spending  piles,  too.  Their  house,  at  the  western  end  of 
the  block,  is  new  and  charming. 

I  am  half  in  love  with  Detroit.  I  may  as  well  admit 
it,  for  you  are  sure  to  find  me  out.  She  is  beautiful — 
not  with  the  warm,  passionate  beauty  of  San  Francisco, 
the  austere  mountain  beauty  of  Denver,  nor  the  strange, 
sophisticated,  destroying  beauty  of  New  York,  but  with 
a  sweet  domestic  kind  of  beauty,  like  that  of  a  young 
wife,  gay,  strong,  alert,  enthusiastic;  a  twinkle  in  her 
eye,  a  laugh  upon  her  lips.  She  has  temperament  and 
charm,  qualities  as  rare,  as  fascinating,  and  as  difficult 
to  define  in  a  city  as  in  a  human  being. 

Do  you  ask  why  she  is  different  from  her  sisters  ?  I 
was  afraid  you  might  ask  that.  They  tell  a  romantic 
story.  I  don't  like  to  repeat  gossip,  but —  They  say 
that,  long  ago,  when  her  mother  lived  upon  a  little  farm 
by  the  river,  there  came  along  a  dashing  voyageur,  from 
France,  who  loved  her.  Mind  you,  I  vouch  for  noth 
ing.  It  is  a  legend.  I  do  not  affirm  that  it  is  true. 
But — voila!  There  is  Detroit.  She  is  different. 

If  you  will  consider  these  three  fictitious  sisters  as 

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DETROIT  THE  DYNAMIC 

figures  in  a  cartoon — a  cartoon  not  devoid  of  carica 
ture — you  will  get  an  impression  of  my  impression  of 
three  cities.  My  three  sisters  are  merely  symbols,  like 
the  figures  of  Uncle  Sam  and  John  Bull.  A  symbol  is 
a  kind  of  generalization,  and  if  you  disagree  with 
these  generalizations  of  mine  (as  I  think  you  may, 
especially  if  you  live  in  Buffalo  or  Cleveland),  let  me 
remind  you  that  some  one  has  said:  "All  generaliza 
tions  are  false — including  this  one."  One  respect  in 
which  my  generalization  is  false  is  in  picturing  Detroit 
as  young.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  she  is  the  oldest  city 
of  the  three,  having  been  settled  by  the  Sieur  de  la 
Mothe  Cadillac  in  1701,  ninety  years  before  the  first 
white  man  built  his  hut  where  Buffalo  now  stands,  and 
ninety-five  years  before  the  settlement  of  Cleveland. 
This  is  the  fact.  Yet  I  hold  that  there  is  about  Detroit 
something  which  expresses  ebullient  youth,  and  that 
Buffalo  and  Cleveland,  if  they  do  not  altogether  lack 
the  quality  of  youth,  have  it  in  a  less  degree. 

So  far  as  I  recall,  Chicago  was  the  first  American  city 
to  adopt  a  motto,  or,  as  they  call  it  now,  a  "slogan." 

I  remember  long  ago  a  rather  crude  bust  of  a  helmeted 
Amazon  bearing  upon  her  proud  chest  the  words:  "I 
Will!"  She  was  supposed  to  typify  Chicago,  and  I 
rather  think  she  did.  Cleveland's  slogan  is  the  con 
servative  but  significant  "Sixth  City,"  but  Detroit  comes 
out  with  a  youthful  shriek  of  self-satisfaction,  declar 
ing  that:  "In  Detroit  Life  is  Worth  Living!" 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Doesn't  that  claim  reflect  the  quality  of  youth? 
Does  n't  it  remind  you  of  the  little  boy  who  says  to  the 
other  little  boy:  "My  father  can  lick  your  father"? 
Of  course  it  has  the  patent-medicine  flavor,  too;  De 
troit,  by  her  "slogan,"  is  a  cure-all.  But  that  is  not  de 
liberate.  It  is  exaggeration  springing  from  natural  op 
timism  and  exuberance.  Life  is  doubtless  more  worth 
living  in  Detroit  than  in  some  other  cities,  but  I  submit 
that,  so  long  as  Mark  Twain's  "damn  human  race"  re 
tains  those  foibles  of  mind,  morals,  and  body  for  which 
it  is  so  justly  famous,  the  "slogan"  of  the  city  of  Detroit 
guarantees  a  little  bit  too  much. 

I  find  the  same  exuberance  in  the  publications  issued 
by  the  Detroit  Board  of  Commerce.  Having  just  left 
the  Cleveland  Chamber  of  Commerce,  I  sedulously 
avoided  contact  with  the  Detroit  body — one  can  get  an 
overdose  of  that  kind  of  thing.  But  I  have  several 
books.  One  is  a  magazine  called  "The  Detroiter,"  with 
the  subtitle  "Spokesman  of  Optimism."  It  is  full  of 
news  of  new  hotels  and  new  factories  and  new  athletic 
clubs  and  all  kinds  of  expansion.  It  fairly  bursts  from 
its  covers  with  enthusiasm — and  with  business  banali 
ties  about  Detroit's  "onward  sweep,"  her  "surging 
ahead,"  her  "banner  year,"  and  her  "efficiency."  "Be 
a  Booster,"  it  advises,  and  no  one  can  say  that  it  does 
not  live  up  to  its  principles.  Indeed,  as  I  look  it  over, 
I  wonder  if  I  have  not  done  Detroit  an  injustice  in  giv 
ing  to  Cleveland  the  blue  ribbon  for  "boosting."  The 
Detroit  Board  of  Commerce  even  goes  so  far  in  its 

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DETROIT  THE  DYNAMIC 

"boosting"  as  to  "boost"  Detroit  into  seventh  place 
among  American  cities,  while  the  "  World  Almanac" 
(most  valuable  volume  on  the  one-foot  shelf  of  books  I 
carried  on  my  travels)  places  Detroit  ninth. 

Like  Cleveland,  I  find  that  Detroit  is  first  in  the  pro 
duction  of  a  great  many  things.  In  fact,  the  more  I 
read  these  books  issued  by  commercial  bodies,  the 
more  I  am  amazed  at  the  varied  things  there  are  for 
cities  to  be  first  in.  It  is  a  miserable  city,  indeed,  which 
is  first  in  nothing  at  all.  Detroit  is  first  in  the  produc 
tion  of  overalls,  stoves,  varnish,  soda  and  salt  products, 
automobile  accessories,  adding  machines,  pharmaceuti 
cal  manufactures,  aluminum  castings,  in  shipbuilding  on 
the  Great  Lakes  and,  above  all,  in  the  manufacture  of 
motor  cars.  And,  as  the  Board  of  Commerce  adds  sig 
nificantly,  "That 's  not  all !" 

But  it  is  enough. 


The  motor-car  development  in  Detroit  interested 
me  particularly.  When  I  asked  in  Buffalo  why  Detroit 
was  "surging  ahead"  so  rapidly  in  comparison  with  cer 
tain  other  cities,  they  answered,  as  I  knew  they  would : 
"It 's  the  automobile  business." 

But  when  I  asked  why  the  automobile  business  should 
have  settled  on  Detroit  as  a  headquarters  instead  of 
some  other  city  (as,  for  instance,  Buffalo),  they  found 
it  difficult  to  say.  One  Buffalonian  informed  me  that 
Detroit  banks  had  been  more  liberal  than  those  of  other 

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cities  in  supporting  the  motor  industry  in  its  early  days. 
This  was,  however,  vigorously  denied  in  Detroit. 
When  I  mentioned  it  to  the  president  of  one  of  the  larg 
est  automobile  concerns  he  laughed. 

"Banks  don't  do  business  that  way,"  he  declared. 
"The  very  thing  banks  do  not  do  is  to  support  new,  un 
tried  industries.  After  you  have  proved  that  you  can 
make  both  motor  cars  and  money  they  '11  take  care  of 
you.  Not  before.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  banks 
get  confidence  in  any  one  kind  of  business  they  very 
often  run  to  the  opposite  extreme.  That  was  the  way 
it  used  to  be  in  the  lumber  business.  Most  of  the  early 
fortunes  of  Detroit  were  made  in  lumber.  The  banks 
got  used  to  the  lumber  business,  so  that  a  few  years  ago 
all  a  man  had  to  do  was  to  print  'Lumber'  on  his  letter 
head,  write  to  the  banks  and  get  a  line  of  credit.  Later, 
when  the  automobile  business  began  to  boom,  the  same 
thing  happened  over  again:  the  man  whose  letterhead 
bore  the  word  'Automobiles'  was  taken  care  of."  The 
implication  was  that  sometimes  he  was  taken  care  of  a 
little  bit  too  well. 

"Then  why  did  Detroit  become  the  automobile  cen 
ter?"  I  asked. 

The  question  proved  good  for  an  hour's  discussion 
among  certain  learned  pundits  of  the  "trade"  who  were 
in  the  president's  office  at  the  time  I  asked  it. 

First,  it  was  concluded,  several  early  motor  "bugs" 
happened  to  live  in  or  near  Detroit.  Henry  Ford  lived 
there.  He  was  always  experimenting  with  "horseless 

70 


In  midstream  passes  a  continual  parade  of  freighters  .  .  .  and  in  their 
swell  you  may  see,  teetering,  all  kinds  of  craft,  from  proud  white  yachts 
to  canoes 


DETROIT  THE  DYNAMIC 

carriages"  in  the  early  days  and  being  laughed  at  for  it. 
Also,  a  man  named  Packard  built  a  car  at  Warren,  Ohio. 
But  the  first  gasoline  motor  car  to  achieve  what  they 
call  an  "output"  was  the  funny  little  one-cyclinder  Olds- 
mobile  which  steered  with  a  tiller  and  had  a  curved 
dash  like  a  sleigh.  It  is  to  the  Olds  Motor  Company, 
which  built  that  car,  that  a  large  majority  of  the  auto 
mobile  manufactories  in  Detroit  trace  their  origin.  In 
deed,  there  are  to-day  no  less  than  a  dozen  organiza 
tions,  the  heads  of  which  were  at  some  time  connected 
with  the  original  Olds  Company.  This  fifteen-year-old 
forefather  of  the  automobile  business  was  originally 
made  in  Lansing,  Mich.,  but  the  plant  was  moved  to  De 
troit,  where  the  market  for  labor  and  materials  was  bet 
ter.  The  Packard  plant  was  also  moved  there,  and 
for  the  same  reasons,  plus  the  fact  that  the  com 
pany  was  being  financed  by  a  group  of  young  Detroit 
men. 

It  was  not,  perhaps,  entirely  as  an  investment  that 
these  wealthy  young  Detroiters  first  became  interested 
in  the  building  of  motor  cars.  That  is  to  say,  I  do  not 
think  they  would  have  poured  money  so  freely  into  a 
scheme  to  manufacture  something  else — something  less 
picturesque  in  its  appeal  to  the  sporting  instinct  and  the 
imagination.  The  automobile,  with  its  promise,  was 
just  the  right  thing  to  interest  rich  young  men,  and  it 
did  interest  them,  and  it  has  made  many  of  them  richer 
than  they  were  before. 

It  seems  to  be  an  axiom  that,  if  you  start  a  new  busi- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

ness  anywhere,  and  it  is  successful,  others  will  start  in 
the  same  business  beside  you.  One  of  the  pundits  re 
ferred  me,  for  example,  to  Erie,  Pa.,  where  life  is  en 
tirely  saturated  with  engine  and  boiler  ideas  simply  be 
cause  the  Erie  City  Iron  Works  started  there  and  was 
successful.  There  are  now  sixteen  engine  and  boiler 
companies  in  Erie,  and  all  of  them,  I  am  assured,  are 
there  either  directly  or  indirectly  because  the  Erie  City 
Iron  Works  is  there.  In  other  words,  we  sat  in 
that  office  and  had  a  very  pleasant  hour's  talk  merely  to 
discover  that  there  is  truth  in  the  familiar  saying  about 
birds  of  a  feather. 

When  we  got  that  settled  and  the  pundits  began  to 
drift  away  to  other  plate-glass  rooms  along  the  mile, 
more  or  less,  of  corridor  devoted  to  officials'  offices,  I 
became  interested  in  a  little  wooden  box  which  stood 
upon  the  president's  large  flat-top  desk.  I  was  told  it 
was  a  dictagraph.  Never  having  seen  a  dictagraph  be 
fore,  and  being  something  of  a  child,  I  wished  to  play 
with  it  as  I  used  to  play  with  typewriters  and  letter 
presses  in  my  father's  office  years  ago.  And  the  presi 
dent  of  this  many-million-dollar  corporation,  being  a 
kindly  man  with,  of  course,  absolutely  nothing  to  do  but 
to  supply  itinerant  scribes  with  playthings,  let  me  toy 
with  the  machine.  Sitting  at  the  desk,  he  pressed  a 
key.  Then,  without  changing  his  position,  he  spoke 
into  the  air: 

"Fred,"  he  said,  "there  's  some  one  here  who  wants 
to  ask  you  a  question." 

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DETROIT  THE  DYNAMIC 

Then  the  little  wooden  box  began  to  talk. 

"What  does  he  want  to  ask  about?"  it  said. 

That  put  it  up  to  me.  I  had  to  think  of  something  to 
ask.  I  was  conscious  of  a  strange,  unpleasant  feeling  of 
being  hurried — of  having  to  reply  quickly  before  some 
thing  happened — some  breaking  of  connections. 

I  leaned  toward  the  machine,  but  the  president  waved 
me  back:  aJust  srt  over  there  where  you  are/' 

Then  I  said:  "I  am  writing  articles  about  Buffalo, 
Cleveland,  and  Detroit.  How  would  you  compare 
them?" 

"Well,"  replied  the  Fred-in-the-box,  "I  used  to  live 
in  Cleveland.  I  've  been  here  four  years  and  I  would  n't 
want  to  go  back." 

After  that  we  paused.  I  thought  I  ought  to  say  some 
thing  more  to  the  box,  but  I  did  n't  know  just  what. 

"Is  that  all  you  want  to  know?"  it  asked. 

"Yes,"  I  replied  hurriedly.  "I  'm  much  obliged. 
That 's  all  I  want  to  know." 

Of  course  •  it  really  \vas  n't  all — not  by  any  means ! 
But  I  could  n't  bring  myself  to  say  so  then,  so  I  said  the 
easy,  obvious  thing,  and  after  that  it  was  too  late.  Oh, 
how  many  things  there  are  I  want  to  know!  How 
many  things  I  think  of  now  which  I  would  ask  an  oracle 
when  there  is  none  to  ask!  Things  about  the  here  and 
the  hereafter;  about  the  human  spirit;  about  practical 
religion,  the  brotherhood  of  man,  the  inequalities  of 
men,  evolution,  reform,  the  enduring  mysteries  of  space, 
time,  eternity,  and  woman! 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

A  friend  of  mine — a  spiritualist — once  told  me  of  a 
seance  in  which  he  thought  himself  in  brief  communica 
tion  with  his  mother.  There  were  a  million  things  to 
say.  But  when  the  medium  requested  him  to  give  a  mes 
sage  he  could  only  falter:  "Are  you  all  right  over 
there?"  The  answer  came:  "Yes,  all  right."  Then 
my  friend  said:  "I  'm  so  glad!"  And  that  was  all. 

"It  is  the  feeling  of  awful  pressure,"  he  explained  to 
me,  "which  drives  the  thoughts  out  of  your  head.  That 
is  why  so  many  messages  from  the  spirit  world  sound 
silly  and  inconsequential.  You  have  the  one  great 
chance  to  communicate  with  them,  and,  because  it  is 
your  one  great  chance,  you  cannot  think  of  anything  to 
say."  Somehow  I  imagine  that  the  feeling  must  be 
like  the  one  I  had  in  talking  to  the  dictagraph. 


Among  the  characteristics  which  give  Detroit  her  in 
dividuality  is  the  survival  of  her  old-time  aristocracy; 
she  is  one  of  the  few  middle-western  cities  possessing 
such  a  social  order.  As  with  that  of  St.  Louis,  this 
aristocracy  is  of  French  descent,  the  Sibleys,  Campaus, 
and  other  old  Detroit  families  tracing  their  genealogies 
to  forefathers  who  came  out  to  the  New  World  under 
the  flag  of  Louis  XIV.  The  early  habitants  acquired 
farms,  most  of  them  with  small  frontages  on  the  river 
and  running  back  for  several  miles  into  the  woods — an 
arrangement  which  permitted  farmhouses  to  be  built 
close  together  for  protection  against  Indians.  These 

74 


H 


c 


n 


a-  ju 

|l 
3  3 

:§- 


S  O 

c,  2. 

II 


If 


n  2. 
o  ""^ 

ll 


DETROIT  THE  DYNAMIC 

farms,  handed  down  for  generations,  form  the  basis  of 
a  number  of  Detroit's  older  family  fortunes. 

To-day  commerce  takes  up  the  downtown  portion  of 
the  river  front,  but  not  far  from  the  center  of  the  city 
the  shore  line  is  still  occupied  by  residences.  Along 
Jefferson  Avenue  are  many  homes,  surrounded  by  de 
lightful  lawns  extending  forward  to  the  street  and  back 
to  the  river.  Most  of  these  homes  have  in  their  back 
yards  boathouses  and  docks — some  of  the  latter  large 
enough  to  berth  seagoing  steam  yachts,  of  which  De 
troit  boasts  a  considerable  number.  Nor  is  the  water 
front  reserved  entirely  for  private  use.  In  Belle  Isle, 
situated  in  the  Detroit  River,  and  accessible  by  either 
boat  or  bridge,  the  city  possesses  one  of  the  most  un 
usual  and  charming  public  parks  to  be  seen  in  the  entire 
world.  And  there  are  many  other  pleasant  places  near 
Detroit  which  may  be  reached  by  boat — among  them 
the  St.  Clair  Flats,  famous  for  duck  shooting.  All 
these  features  combine  to  make  the  river  life  active  and 
picturesque.  In  midstream  passes  a  continual  parade 
of  freighters,  a  little  mail  boat  dodging  out  to  meet  each 
one  as  it  goes  by.  Huge  side-wheel  excursion  steamers 
come  and  go,  and  in  their  swell  you  may  see,  teetering, 
all  kinds  of  craft,  from  proud  white  yachts  with  shining 
brasswork  and  bowsprits  having  the  expression  of 
haughty  turned-up  noses,  down  through  the  category  of 
schooners,  barges,  tugs,  motor  yachts,  motor  boats, 
sloops,  small  sailboats,  rowboats,  and  canoes.  You 
may  even  catch  sight  of  a  hydroplane  swiftly  skimming 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  surface  of  the  river  like  some  amphibious,  prehis 
toric  animal,  or  of  that  natty  little  gunboat,  captured 
from  the  Spaniards  at  the  battle  of  Manila  Bay,  which 
now  serves  as  a  training  ship  for  the  Michigan  Naval 
Reserve. 

A  good  many  of  the  young  aristocrats  of  Detroit  have 
belonged  to  the  Naval  Reserve,  among  them  Mr.  Tru 
man  H.  Newberry,  former  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  about 
whom  I  heard  an  amusing  story. 

According  to  this  tale,  as  it  was  told  me  in  Detroit,  Mr. 
Newberry  was  some  years  ago  a  common  seaman  in  the 
Reserve.  It  seems  that  on  the  occasion  of  the  annual 
cruise  of  this  body  on  the  Great  Lakes,  a  regular  naval 
officer  is  sent  out  to  take  command  of  the  training  ship. 
One  day,  when  common  seaman  Dewberry  was  engaged 
in  the  maritime  occupation  of  swabbing  down  the  decks 
abaft  the  bridge,  a  large  yacht  passed  majestically  by. 

"My  man,"  said  the  regular  naval  officer  on  the  bridge 
to  common  seaman  Newberry  below,  "do  you  know  what 
yacht  that  is?" 

Newberry  saluted.  "The  Truant,  sir,"  he  said  re 
spectfully,  and  resumed  his  work. 

"Who  owns  her?"  asked  the  officer. 

Again  Newberry  straightened  and  saluted. 

"I  do,  sir,"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  VI 
AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART 

WITHIN  the  last  few  years  there  has  come  to 
Detroit  a  new  life.     The  vast  growth  of  the 
city,  owing  to  the  development  of  the  auto 
mobile  industry,  has  brought  in  many  new,  active,  able 
business  men  and  their  families,  whom  the  old  Detroit- 
ers   have   dubbed   the   "Gasoline   Aristocracy."     Thus 
there  are  in  Detroit  two  fairly  distinct  social  groups — 
the  Grosse  Pointe  group,  of  which  the  old  families  form 
the  nucleus,  and  the  North  Woodward  group,  largely 
made  up  of  newcomers. 

The  automobile  has  not  only  changed  Detroit  from 
a  quiet  old  town  into  a  rich,  active  city,  but  upon  the 
drowsy  romance  of  the  old  days  it  has  superimposed  a 
new  kind  of  romance — the  romance  of  modern  business. 
Fiction  in  its  wildest  flights  hardly  rivals  the  true  stories 
of  certain  motor  moguls  of  Detroit.  Every  one  can 
tell  you  these  stories.  If  you  are  a  novelist  all  you 
have  to  do  is  go  and  get  them.  But,  aside  from  stories 
which  are  true,  there  have  developed,  in  connection  with 
the  automobile  business,  certain  fictions  more  or  less 
picturesque  in  character.  One  of  these,  which  has  been 
widely  circulated,  is  that  "90  per  cent,  of  the  automobile 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

business  of  Detroit  is  done  in  the  bar  of  the  Pontchar- 
train  Hotel."  The  big  men  of  the  business  resent  that 
yarn.  And,  of  course,  it  is  preposterously  false. 
Neither  90  per  cent,  nor  10  per  cent,  nor  any  appreciable 
per  cent,  of  the  automobile  business  is  done  there.  In 
deed,  you  hardly  ever  see  a  really  important  representa 
tive  of  the  business  in  that  place.  Such  men  are  not 
given  to  hanging  around  bars. 

I  do  not  wish  the  reader  to  infer  that  I  hung  around 
the  bar  myself  in  order  to  ascertain  this  fact.  Not  at 
all.  I  had  heard  the  story  and  was  apprised  of  its  un 
truth  by  the  president  of  one  of  the  large  motor  car 
companies  who  was  generously  showing  me  about.  As 
we  bowled  along  one  of  the  wide  streets  which  passes 
through  that  open  place  at  the  center  of  the  city  called 
the  Campus  Martius,  I  was  struck,  as  any  visitor  must 
be,  by  the  spectacle  of  hundreds  upon  hundreds  of  auto 
mobiles  parked,  nose  to  the  curb,  tail  to  the  street,  in 
solid  rows. 

"You  could  tell  that  this  was  an  automobile  city,"  I 
remarked. 

"Do  you  know  why  you  see  so  many  of  them?"  he 
asked  with  a  smile. 

I  said  I  supposed  it  was  because  there  were  so  many 
automobiles  owned  in  Detroit. 

"No,"  he  explained.  "In  other  cities  with  as  many 
and  more  cars  you  will  not  see  this  kind  of  thing.  They 
don't  permit  it.  But  our  wide  streets  lend  themselves 
to  it,  and  our  Chief  of  Police,  who  believes  in  the  auto- 

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AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART 

mobile  business  as  much  as  any  of  the  rest  of  us,  also 
lends  himself  to  it.  He  lets  us  leave  our  cars  about  the 
streets  because  he  thinks  it  a  good  advertisement  for  the 
town/' 

As  he  spoke  he  was  forced  to  draw  up  at  a  crossing 
to  let  a  funeral  pass.  It  was  an  automobile  funeral. 
The  hearse,  black  and  terrible  as  only  a  hearse  can  be, 
was  going  at  a  modest  pace  for  a  motor,  but  an  exceed 
ingly  rapid  pace  for  a  hearse.  If  I  am  any  judge  of 
speed,  the  departed  was  being  wafted  to  his  final  rest 
ing  place  at  the  somewhat  sprightly  clip  of  twelve  or 
fifteen  miles  an  hour.  Behind  the  hearse  trailed 
limousines  and  touring  cars.  Two  humble  taxicabs 
brought  up  the  rear.  There  was  a  grim  ridiculousness 
about  the  procession's  progress — pleasure  cars  throttled 
down,  trying  to  look  solemn — chauffeurs  continually 
throwing  out  their  clutches  in  a  commendable  effort  to 
keep  a  respectful  rate  of  speed. 

Is  there  any  other  thing  in  the  world  which  epito 
mizes  our  times  as  does  an  automobile  funeral?  Yes 
terday  such  a  thing  would  have  been  deemed  indecor 
ous;  to-day  it  is  not  only  decorous,  but  rather  chic,  pro 
vided  that  the  pace  be  slow;  to-morrow — what  will  it 
be  then?  Will  hearses  go  shooting  through  the  streets 
at  forty  miles  an  hour?  Will  mourners  scorch  behind, 
their  horns  shrieking  signals  to  the  driver  of  the  hearse 
to  get  out  of  the  road  and  let  the  swiftest  pass  ahead, 
where  there  is  n't  all  that  dust  ?  I  am  afraid  a  time  is 
close  at  hand  when,  if  hearses  are  to  maintain  that  posi- 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

tion  in  the  funeral  cortege  to  which  convention  has  in 
the  past  assigned  them,  they  will  have  to  hold  it  by  sheer 
force  of  superior  horsepower ! 


Detroit  is  a  young  man's  town.  I  do  not  think  the 
stand-pat,  sit-tight,  go-easy  kind  of  business  man  ex 
ists  there.  The  wheel  of  commerce  has  wire  spokes  and 
rubber  tires,  and  there  is  no  drag  upon  the  brake  band. 
Youth  is  at  the  steering  wheel — both  figuratively  and 
literally.  The  heads  of  great  Detroit  industries  drive 
their  own  cars ;  and  if  the  fact  seems  unimportant,  con 
sider  :  do  the  leading  men  of  your  city  drive  theirs  ?  Or 
are  they  driven  by  chauffeurs?  Have  they,  in  other 
words,  reached  a  time  of  life  and  a  frame  of  mind  which 
prohibit  their  taking  the  wheel  because  it  is  not  safe 
for  them  to  do  so,  or  worse  yet,  because  it  is  not  digni 
fied?  Have  they  that  energy  which  replaces  worn-out 
tires — and  methods — and  ideas? 

I  have  said  that  the  president  of  a  large  automobile 
company  showed  me  about  Detroit.  I  don't  know  what 
his  age  is,  but  he  is  under  thirty-five.  I  don't  know 
what  his  fortune  is,  but  he  is  suspected  of  a  million,  and 
whatever  he  may  have,  he  has  made  himself.  I  hope 
he  is  a  millionaire,  for  there  is  in  the  entire  world  only 
one  other  man  who,  I  feel  absolutely  certain,  deserves 
a  million  dollars  more  than  he  does — and  a  native  mod 
esty  prevents  my  mentioning  this  other's  name. 

Looking  at  my  friend,  the  president,  I  am  always 

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AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART 

struck  with  fresh  amazement.  I  want  to  say  to  him: 
"You  can't  be  the  president  of  that  great  big  company! 
I  know  you  sit  in  the  president's  office,  but — look  at 
your  hair ;  it  is  n't  even  turning  gray !  I  refuse  to 
believe  that  you  are  president  until  you  show  me  your 
ticket,  or  your  diploma,  or  whatever  it  is  that  a  presi 
dent  has!" 

Becoming  curious  about  his  exact  age,  I  took  up  my 
"Who  's  Who  in  America"  one  evening  ("Who  's  Who" 
is  another  valued  volume  on  my  one-foot  shelf)  with  a 
view  to  finding  out.  But  all  I  did  find  out  was  that 
his  name  is  not  contained  therein.  That  struck  me  as 
surprising.  I  looked  up  the  heads  of  half  a  dozen  other 
enormous  automobile  companies — men  of  importance, 
interest,  reputation.  Of  these  I  discovered  the  name  of 
but  one,  and  that  one  was  not  (as  I  should  have  rather 
expected  it  to  be)  Henry  Ford.  (There  is  a  Henry 
Ford  in  my  "Who  's  Who,"  but  he  is  a  professor  at 
Princeton  and  writes  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly  !Y 

Now  whether  this  is  so  because  of  the  newness  of  the 
automobile  business,  or  because  "Who  's  Who"  turns  up 
its  nose  at  "trade,"  in  contradistinction  to  the  profes 
sions  and  the  arts,  I  cannot  say.  Obviously,  the  com 
pilation  of  such  a  work  involves  tremendous  difficulties, 
and  I  have  always  respected  the  volume  for  the  ability 
with  which  it  overcomes  them;  but  when  a  Detroit 
dentist  (who  invented,  as  I  recollect,  some  new  kind  of 

1  "Who's  Who"  for  1913-1914.  The  more  recent  volume,  which  has 
come  out  since,  contains  a  biographical  sketch  of  Mr.  Henry  Ford  of 
Detroit. 

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filling)  is  included  in  "Who  's  Who,"  and  when  almost 
every  minor  poet  who  squeaks  is  in  it,  and  almost  every 
illustrator  who  makes  candy-looking  girls  for  magazine 
covers,  and  almost  every  writer — then  it  seems  to  me 
time  to  include,  as  well,  the  names  of  men  who  are  in 
charge  of  that  industry  which  is  not  only  the  greatest 
in  Detroit,  but  which,  more  than  any  industry  since  the 
inception  of  the  telephone,  has  transformed  our  life. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is,  of  course,  that  writers,  in 
particular,  are  taken  too  seriously,  not  merely  by 
"Who  's  Who"  but  by  all  kinds  of  publications — espe 
cially  newspapers.  Only  opera  singers  and  actors  can 
vie  with  writers  in  the  amount  of  undeserved  publicity 
which  they  receive.  If  I  omit  professional  baseball 
players  it  is  by  intention ;  for,  as  a  fan  might  say,  they 
have  to  "deliver  the  goods." 


Baedeker's  United  States,  a  third  volume  in  the  con 
densed  library  I  carried  in  my  trunk,  sets  forth  (in 
small  type!)  the  follpwing:  "The  finest  private  art 
gallery  in  Detroit  is  jhat  of  Mr.  Charles  L.  Freer.  The 
gallery  contains  the  largest  group  of  works  by  Whistler 
in  existence  and  good  examples  of  Tryon,  Dewing,  and 
Abbott  Thayer  as  well  as  many  Oriental  paintings  and 
potteries." 

But  in  the  case  of  the  Detroit  Museum  of  Art, 
Baedeker  bursts  into  black-faced  type,  and  even  adds  an 
asterisk,  his  mark  of  special  commendation.  Also  a 

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AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART 

considerable  reference  is  made  to  various  collections 
contained  by  the  museum :  the  Scripps  collection  of  old 
masters,  the  Stearns  collection  of  Oriental  curiosities, 
a  painting  by  Rubens,  drawings  by  Raphael  and  Michel 
angelo,  and  a  great  many  works  attributed  to  ancient 
Italian  and  Dutch  masters.  'The  museum  also  con 
tains,''  says  Baedeker,  "modern  paintings  by  Gari 
Melchers,  Munkacsy,  Tryon,  F.  D.  Millet,  and 
others." 

I  have  quoted  Baedeker  as  above,  because  it  reveals 
the  bald  fact  with  regard  to  art  in  Detroit ;  also  because 
it  reveals  the  even  balder  fact  that  our  blessed  old 
friend  Baedeker,  who  has  helped  us  all  so  much,  can, 
when  he  cuts  loose  on  art,  make  himself  exquisitely  ri 
diculous. 

The  truth  is,  of  course,  that  Mr.  Freer's  gallery  is  not 
merely  the  "finest  private  gallery  in  Detroit";  not 
merely  the  finest  gallery  of  any  kind  in  Detroit;  but 
that  it  is  one  of  the  exceedingly  important  collections  of 
the  world,  just  as  Mr.  Freer  is  one  of  the  world's  ex 
ceedingly  important  authorities  on  art.  Indeed,  any 
town  which  contains  Mr.  Freer — even  if  he  is  only  stop 
ping  overnight  in  a  hotel — becomes  by  grace  of  his 
presence  an  important  art  center  for  the  time  being. 
His  mere  presence  is  sufficient.  For  in  Mr.  Freer's 
head  there  is  more  art  than  is  contained  in  many  a  mu 
seum.  He  was  the  man  whom,  above  all  others  in  De 
troit,  we  wished  to  see.  (And  that  is  no  disparage 
ment  of  Henry  Ford.) 

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Once  in  a  long,  long  time  it  is  given  to  the  average 
human  being  to  make  contact  for  a  brief  space  with 
some  other  human  being  far  above  the  average — a  man 
who  knows  one  thing  supremely  well.  I  have  met  six 
such  men :  a  surgeon,  a  musician,  an  author,  an  actor,  a 
painter,  and  Mr.  Charles  L.  Freer. 

I  do  not  know  much  of  Mr.  Freer's  history.  He  was 
not  born  in  Detroit,  though  it  was  there  that  he  made 
the  fortune  which  enabled  him  to  retire  from  business. 
It  is  surprising  enough  to  hear  of  an  American  business 
man  willing  to  retire  in  the  prime  of  life.  You  expect 
that  in  Europe,  not  here.  And  it  is  still  more  surpris 
ing  when  that  American  business  man  begins  to  devote 
to  art  the  same  energy  which  made  him  a  success 
financially.  Few  would  want  to  do  that;  fewer  could. 
By  the  time  the  average  successful  man  has  wrung 
from  the  world  a  few  hundred  thousand  dollars,  he  is 
fit  for  nothing  else.  He  has  become  a  wringer  and  must 
remain  one  always. 

Of  course  rich  men  collect  pictures.  I  'm  not  deny 
ing  that.  But  they  do  it,  generally,  for  the  same  rea 
son  they  collect  butlers  and  footmen — because  tradition 
says  it  is  the  proper  thing  to  do.  And  I  have  observed 
in  the  course  of  my  meanderings  that  they  are  almost 
invariably  better  judges  of  butlers  than  of  paintings. 
That  is  because  their  butlers  are  really  and  truly  more 
important  to  them — excepting  as  their  paintings  have 
financial  value.  Still,  if  the  world  is  full  of  so-called 
art  collectors  who  don't  know  what  they  're  doing,  let  us 

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AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART 

not  think  of  them  too  harshly,  for  there  are  also  paint 
ers  who  do  not  know  what  they  are  doing,  and  it  is  nec 
essary  that  some  one  should  support  them.  Otherwise 
they  would  starve,  and  a  bad  painter  should  not  have  to 
do  that — starvation  being  an  honor  reserved  by  tradi 
tion  for  the  truly  great. 

Very  keenly  I  feel  the  futility  of  an  attempt  to  tell 
of  Mr.  Freer  in  a  few  paragraphs.  He  should  be  dealt 
with  as  Mark  Twain  was  dealt  with  by  that  prince  of 
biographers,  Albert  Bigelow  Paine;  some  one  should 
live  with  him  through  the  remainder  of  his  life — al 
ways  sympathetic  and  appreciative,  always  ready  to 
draw  him  out,  always  with  a  notebook.  It  should  be 
some  one  just  like  Paine,  and  as  there  is  n't  some  one 
just  like  Paine,  it  should  be  Paine  himself. 

Probably  as  a  development  of  his  original  interest  in 
Whistler,  Mr.  Freer  has,  of  late  years,  devoted  himself 
almost  entirely  to  ancient  Oriental  art — sculptures, 
paintings,  ceramics,  bronzes,  textiles,  lacquers  and 
jades.  The  very  rumor  that  in  some  little  town  in 
the  interior  of  China  was  an  old  vase  finer  than  any 
other  known  vase  of  the  kind,  has  been  enough  to  set 
him  traveling.  Many  of  his  greatest  treasures  he  has 
unearthed,  bargained  for  and  acquired  at  first  hand,  in 
remote  parts  of  the  globe.  He  bearded  Whistler  in  his 
den — that  is  a  story  by  itself.  He  purchased  Whis 
tler's  famous  Peacock  Room,  brought  it  to  this  coun 
try  and  set  it  up  in  his  own  house.  He  traveled  on 
elephant-back  through  the  jungles  of  India  and  Java 

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in  search  of  buried  temples ;  to  Egypt  for  Biblical  manu 
scripts  and  potteries,  and  to  the  nearer  East,  years  ago, 
in  quest  of  the  now  famous  Clustered  glazes."  He 
made  many  trips  to  Japan,  in  early  days,  to  study,  in 
ancient  temples  and  private  collections,  the  fine  arts  of 
China,  Corea  and  Japan,  and  was  the  first  American 
student  to  visit  the  rock-hewn  caves  of  central  China, 
with  their  thousands  of  specimens  of  early  sculpture — 
sculpture  ranking,  Mr.  Freer  says,  with  the  best  sculp 
ture  of  the  world. 

The  photographs  and  rubbings  of  these  objects  made 
under  Mr.  Freer's  personal  supervision  have  greatly 
aided  students,  all  over  the  globe.  Every  important 
public  library  in  this  country  and  abroad  has  been  pre 
sented  by  Mr.  Freer  with  fac-similes  of  the  Biblical 
manuscripts  discovered  by  him  in  Egypt  about  seven 
years  ago,  so  far  as  these  have  been  published.  The 
original  manuscripts  will  ultimately  go  to  the  National 
Gallery,  at  Washington. 

Mr.  Freer's  later  life  has  been  one  long  treasure  hunt. 
Now  he  will  be  pursuing  a  pair  of  mysterious  por 
celains  around  the  earth,  catching  up  with  them  in 
China,  losing  them,  finding  them  again  in  Japan,  or  in 
New  York,  or  Paris;  now  discovering  in  some  un 
heard-of  Chinese  town  a  venerable  masterpiece,  painted 
on  silk,  which  has  been  rolled  into  a  ball  for  a  child's 
plaything.  The  placid  pleasures  of  conventional  col 
lecting,  through  the  dealers,  is  not  the  thing  that  Mr. 
Freer  loves.  He  loves  the  chase. 

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AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART 

You  should  see  him  handle  his  ceramics.  You  should 
hear  him  talk  of  them!  He  knows.  And  though  you 
do  not  know,  you  know  he  knows.  More,  he  is  willing 
to  explain.  For,  though  his  intolerance  is  great,  it  is 
not  directed  so  much  at  honest  ignorance  as  against 
meretricious  art. 

The  names  of  ancient  Chinese  painters,  of  emperors 
who  practised  art  centuries  ago,  of  dynasties  covering 
thousands  of  years,  of  Biblical  periods,  flow  kindly  from 
his  lips: 

"This  dish  is  Grecian.  It  was  made  five  hundred 
years  before  the  birth  of  Christ.  This  is  a  Chinese 
marble,  but  you  see  it  has  a  Persian  scroll  in  high  re 
lief.  And  this  bronze  urn:  it  is.  perhaps  the  oldest 
piece  I  have — about  four  thousand  years — it  is  Chinese. 
But  do  you  see  this  border  on  it?  Perfect  Greek! 
Where  did  the  Chinese  get  that?  Art  is  universal. 
We  may  call  an  object  Greek,  or  Roman,  or  Assyrian, 
or  Chinese,  or  Japanese,  but  as  we  begin  to  understand, 
we  find  that  other  races  had  the  same  thing — identical 
forms  and  designs.  Take,  for  example,  this  painting  of 
Whistler's,  The  Gold  Screen/  You  see  he  uses  the 
Tosa  design.  The  Tosa  was  used  in  Japan  in  the 
eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  and  down  to  about 
twenty  years  ago.  But  there  was  n't  a  single  example 
of  it  in  Europe  in  1864,  when  Whistler  painted  The 
Gold  Screen' ;  and  Whistler  had  not  been  to  the  Orient. 
Then,  where  did  he  get  the  Tosa  design  ?  He  invented 

8? 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

it.     It  came  to  him  because  he  was  a  great  artist,  and 
art  is  universal." 

It  was  like  that — the  spirit  of  it.  And  you  must  im 
agine  the  words  spoken  with  measured  distinctness  in  a 
deep,  resonant  voice,  by  a  man  with  whom  art  is  a  re 
ligion  and  the  pursuit  of  it  a  passion.  He  has  a  nature 
full  of  fire.  At  the  mention  of  the  name  of  the  late 
J.  P.  Morgan,  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  or 
of  certain  Chinese  collectors  and  painters  of  the  distant 
past,  a  sort  of  holy  flame  of  admiration  rose  and  kindled 
in  him.  His  contempt  is  also  fire.  A  minor  eruption 
occurred  when  the  automobile  industry  was  spoken  of; 
a  Vesuvian  flare  which  reddened  the  sky  and  left  the 
commercialism  of  the  city  in  smoking  ruins.  But  it 
was  not  until  I  chanced  to  mention  the  Detroit  Museum 
of  Art — an  institution  of  which  Mr.  Freer  strongly 
disapproves — that  the  great  outburst  came.  His  wrath 
was  like  an  overpowering  revolt  of  nature.  A  whirl 
wind  of  tempestuous  fire  mounted  to  the  heavens  and 
the  museum  emerged  a  clinker. 

He  went  to  our  heads.  We  four,  who  saw  and  heard 
him,  left  Mr.  Freer's  house  drunk  with  the  esthetic. 
Even  the  flooding  knowledge  of  our  own  barbarian  ig 
norance  was  not  enough  to  sober  us.  Some  of  the 
flame  had  gotten  into  us.  It  was  like  old  brandy.  We 
waved  our  arms  and  cried  out  about  art.  For  there 
is  in  a  truly  big  human  being — especially  in  one  old 
enough  to  have  seemed  to  gain  perspective  on  the  uni- 

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AUTOMOBILES  AND  ART 

verse — some  quality  which  touches  something  in  us  that 
nothing  else  can  ever  reach.  It  is  something  which  is 
not  admiration  only,  nor  vague  longing  to  emulate,  nor 
a  quickened  comprehension  of  the  immensity  of  things; 
something  emotional  and  spiritual  and  strange  and  in 
describable  which  seems  to  set  our  souls  to  singing. 

The  Freer  collection  will  go,  ultimately,  to  the  Smith 
sonian  Institution  (the  National  Gallery)  in  Washing 
ton,  a  fact  which  is  the  cause  of  deep  regret  to  many 
persons  in  Detroit,  more  especially  since  the  City  Plan 
and  Improvement  Commission  has  completed  arrange 
ments  for  a  Center  of  Arts  and  Letters — a  fine  group 
plan  which  will  assemble  and  give  suitable  setting  to  a 
new  Museum  of  Art,  Public  Library,  and  other  build 
ings  of  like  nature,  including  a  School  of  Design  and  an 
Orchestra  Hall.  The  site  for  the  new  gallery  of  art 
was  purchased  with  funds  supplied  by  public-spirited 
citizens,  and  the  city  has  given  a  million  dollars  toward 
the  erection  of  the  building.  Plans  for  the  library  have 
been  drawn  by  Cass  Gilbert. 

It  seems  possible  that,  had  the  new  art  museum  been 
started  sooner,  and  with  some  guarantee  of  competent 
management,  Mr.  Freer  might  have  considered  it  as  an 
ultimate  repository  for  his  treasures.  But  now  it  is  too 
late.  That  the  present  art  museum — the  old  ore — was 
not  to  be  considered  by  him,  is  perfectly  obvious.  In 
side  and  out  it  is  unworthy.  It  looks  as  much  like  an 
old  waterworks  as  the  new  waterworks  out  on  Jeffer 
son  Avenue  looks  like  a  museum.  Its  foyer  contains 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

some  sculptured  busts,  forming  the  most  amazing  group 
I  have  ever  seen.  The  group  represents,  I  take  it, 
prominent  citizens  of  Detroit — among  them,  according 
to  my  recollection,  the  following:  Hermes,  Augustus 
Caesar,  Mr.  Bela  Hubbard,  Septimus  Severus,  the 
Hon.  T.  W.  Palmer,  Mr.  Frederick  Stearns,  Apollo, 
Demosthenes,  and  the  Hon.  H.  P.  Lillibridge. 

I  do  not  want  to  put  things  into  people's  heads,  but — 
the  old  museum  is  not  fireproof.  God  speed  the  new 
one! 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  MAECENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR 

THE  great  trouble  with  Detroit,  from  my  point  of 
view,  is  that  there  is  too  much  which  should  be 
mentioned:  Grosse  Pointe  with  its  rich  setting 
and  rich  homes;  the  fine  new  railroad  station;  the  ''Cab 
bage  Patch";  the  "Indian  Village"  (so  called  because 
the  streets  bear.  Indian  names)  with  its  examples  of 
modest,  pleasing,  domestic  architecture.  Then  there 
are  the  boulevards,  the  fine  Wayne  County  roads,  the 
clubs— the  Country  Club,  the  Yacht  Club,  the  Boat 
Club,  the  Detroit  Club,  the  University  Club,  all  with 
certain  individuality.  And  there  is  the  unique  little 
Yondatega  Club  of  which  Theodore  Roosevelt  said: 
"It  is  beyond  all  doubt  the  best  club  in  the  coun- 
try." 

Also  there  is  Henry  Ford. 

I  suppose  there  is  no  individual  having  to  do  with 
manufacturing  of  any  kind  whose  name  is  at  present 
more  familiar  to  the  world.  But  in  all  this  ocean  of 
publicity  which  has  resulted  from  Mr.  Ford's  develop 
ment  of  a  reliable,  cheap  car,  from  the  stupefying 
growth  of  his  business  and  his  fortune,  and  more  re 
cently  from  his  sudden  distribution  among  his  working 
people  of  ten  million  dollars  of  profits  from  his  busi- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

ness — in  all  this  publicity  I  have  seen  nothing  that  gave 
me  a  clear  idea  of  Henry  Ford  himself.  I  wanted 
to  see  him — to  assure  myself  that  he  was  not  some 
fabulous  being  out  of  a  Detroit  saga.  I  wanted  to 
know  what  kind  of  man  he  was  to  look  at  and  to  listen 
to. 

The  Ford  plant  is  far,  far  out  on  Woodward  Avenue. 
It  is  so  gigantic  that  there  is  no  use  wasting  words  in 
trying  to  express  its  vastness;  so  full  of  people,  all  of 
them  working  for  Ford,  that  a  thousand  or  two  more 
or  less  would  make  no  difference  in  the  looks  of  things. 
And  among  all  those  people  there  was  just  one  man  I 
really  wanted  to  see,  and  just  one  man  I  really  wanted 
not  to  see.  I  wanted  to  see  Henry  Ford  and  I  wanted 
not  to  see  a  man  named  Liebold,  because,  they  say,  if  you 
see  Liebold  first  you  never  do  see  Ford.  That  is  what 
Liebold  is  for.  He  is  the  man  whose  business  in  life 
it  is  to  know  where  Henry  Ford  is  n't. 

To  get  into  Mr.  Ford's  presence  is  an  undertaking. 
It  is  not  easy  even  to  find  out  whether  he  is  there.  Lie- 
bold  is  so  zealous  in  his  protection  that  he  even  protects 
Mr.  Ford  from  his  own  employees.  Thus,  when  the 
young  official  who  had  my  companion  and  me  in  charge, 
received  word  over  the  office  telephone  that  Mr.  Ford 
was  not  in  the  building,  he  did  n't  believe  it.  He  went 
on  a  quiet  scouting  expedition  of  his  own  before  he 
was  convinced.  Presently  he  returned  to  the  office  in 
which  he  had  deposited  us. 

"No;  he  really  is  n't  here  just  now,"  he  said.  "He  '11 

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THE  MAECENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR 

be  in  presently.     Come  on ;  I  '11  take  you  through  the 
plant." 

The  machine  shop  is  one  room,  with  a  glass  roof, 
covering  an  area  of  something  less  than  thirty  acres. 
It  is  simply  unbelievable  in  its  size,  its  noise  and  its 
ghastly  furious  activity.  It  was  peopled  when  we  were 
there  by  five  thousand  men — the  day  shift  in  that  one 
shop  alone.  (The  total  force  of  workmen  was  some 
thing  like  three  times  that  number.) 

Of  course  there  was  order  in  that  place,  of  course 
there  was  system — relentless  system — terrible  "effi 
ciency" — but  to  my  mind,  unaccustomed  to  such  things, 
the  whole  room,  with  its  interminable  aisles,  its  whirl 
ing  shafts  and  wheels,  its  forest  of  roof-supporting 
posts  and  flapping,  flying,  leather  belting,  its  endless 
rows  of  writhing  machinery,  its  shrieking,  hammering, 
and  clatter,  its  smell  of  oil,  its  autumn  haze  of  smoke, 
its  savage-looking  foreign  population — to  my  mind  it 
expressed  but  one  thing,  and  that  thing  was  delirium. 

Fancy  a  jungle  of  wheels  and  belts  and  weird  iron 
forms — of  men,  machinery  and  movement — add  to  it 
every  kind  of  sound  you  can  imagine:  the  sound  of  a 
million  squirrels  chirking,  a  million  monkeys  quarrel 
ing,  a  million  lions  roaring,  a  million  pigs  dying,  a  mil 
lion  elephants  smashing  through  a  forest  of  sheet  iron,  a 
million  boys  whistling  on  their  fingers,  a  million  others 
coughing  with  the  whooping  cough,  a  million  sinners 
groaning  as  they  are  dragged  to  hell — imagine  all  of 

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this  happening  at  the  very  edge  of  Niagara  Falls,  with 
the  everlasting  roar  of  the  cataract  as  a  perpetual  back 
ground,  and  you  may  acquire  a  vague  conception  of  that 
place. 

Fancy  all  this  riot  going  on  at  once ;  then  imagine  the 
effect  of  its  suddenly  ceasing.  For  that  is  what  it  did. 
The  wheels  slowed  down  and  became  still.  The  belts 
stopped  flapping.  The  machines  lay  dead.  The  noise 
faded  to  a  murmur;  then  to  utter  silence.  Our  ears 
rang  with  the  quiet.  The  aisles  all  at  once  were  full  of 
men  in  overalls,  each  with  a  paper  package  or  a  box. 
Some  of  them  walked  swiftly  toward  the  exits.  Others 
settled  down  on  piles  of  automobile  parts,  or  the  bases 
of  machines,  to  eat,  like  grimy  soldiers  on  a  battlefield. 
It  was  the  lull  of  noon. 

I  was  glad  to  leave  the  machine  shop.  It  dazed  me. 
I  should  have  liked  to  leave  it  some  time  before  I  ac 
tually  did,  but  the  agreeable  young  enthusiast  who  was 
conducting  us  delighted  in  explaining  things — shout 
ing  the  explanations  in  our  ears.  Half  of  them  I  could 
not  hear ;  the  other  half  I  could  not  comprehend.  Here 
and  there  I  recognized  familiar  automobile  parts — great 
heaps  of  them — cylinder  castings,  crank  cases,  axles. 
Then  as  things  began  to  get  a  little  bit  coherent,  along 
would  come  a  train  of  cars  hanging  insanely  from 
a  single  overhead  rail,  the  man  in  the  cab  tooting  his 
shrill  whistle;  whereupon  I  would  promptly  retire  into 
mental  fog  once  more,  losing  all  sense  of  what  things 
meant,  feeling  that  I  was  not  in  any  factory,  but  in  a 

94 


THE  MAECENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR 

Gargantuan  lunatic  asylum  where  fifteen  thousand  rav 
ing,  tearing  maniacs  had  been  given  full  authority  to 
go  ahead  and  do  their  damnedest. 

In  that  entire  factory  there  was  for  me  but  one  com 
pletely  lucid  spot.  That  was  the  place  where  cars  were 
being  assembled.  There  I  perceived  the  system.  No 
sooner  had  axle,  frame,  and  wheels  been  joined  to 
gether  than  the  skeleton  thus  formed  was  attached,  by 
means  of  a  short  wooden  coupling,  to  the  rear  end  of  a 
long  train  of  embryonic  automobiles,  which  was  kept 
moving  slowly  forward  toward  a  far-distant  door. 
Beside  this  train  of  chassis  stood  a  row  of  men,  and  as 
each  succeeding  chassis  came  abreast  of  him,  each  man 
did  something  to  it,  bringing  it  just  a  little  further  to 
ward  completion.  We  walked  ahead  beside  the  row  of 
moving  partially-built  cars,  and  each  car  we  passed 
was  a  little  nearer  to  its  finished  state  than  was  the  one 
behind  it.  Just  inside  the  door  we  paused  and  watched 
them  come  successively  into  first  place  in  the  line.  As 
they  moved  up,  they  were  uncoupled.  Gasoline  was 
fed  into  them  from  one  pipe,  oil  from  another,  water 
from  still  another. 

Then  as  a  man  leaped  to  the  driver's  seat,  a  machine 
situated  in  the  floor  spun  the  back  wheels  around,  caus 
ing  the  motor  to  start ;  whereupon  the  little  Ford  moved 
out  into  the  wide,  wide  world,  a  completed  thing,  pro 
pelled  by  its  own  power. 

In  a  glass  shed  of  the  size  of  a  small  exposition  build- 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

ing  the  members  of  the  Ford  staff  park  their  little  cars. 
It  was  in  this  shed  that  we  discovered  Mr.  Ford.  He 
had  just  driven  in  (in  a  Ford!)  and  was  standing  beside 
it — the  god  out  of  the  machine. 

"Nine  o'clock  to-morrow  morning,"  he  said  to  me  in 
reply  to  my  request  for  an  appointment. 

I  may  have  shuddered  slightly.  I  know  that  my  com 
panion  shuddered,  and  that,  for  one  brief  instant,  I 
felt  a  strong  desire  to  intimate  to  Mr.  Ford  that  ten 
o'clock  would  suit  me  better.  But  I  restrained  my 
self. 

Inwardly  I  argued  thus:  "I  am  in  the  presence 
of  an  amazing  man — a  prince  of  industry — the  Maecenas 
of  the  motor  car.  Here  is  a  man  who,  they  say,  makes 
a  million  dollars  a  month,  even  in  a  short  month  like 
February.  Probably  he  makes  a  million  and  a  quarter 
in  the  thirty-one-day  months  when  he  has  time  to  get 
into  the  spirit  of  the  thing.  I  wish  to  pay  a  beautiful 
tribute  to  this  man,  not  because  he  has  more  money  than 
I  have — I  don't  admit  that  he  has — but  because  he  con 
serves  his  money  better  than  I  conserve  mine.  It  is  for 
that  that  I  take  off  my  hat  to  him,  even  if  I  have  to  get 
up  and  dress  and  be  away  out  here  on  Woodward 
Avenue  by  9  A.  M.  to  do  it." 

Furthermore,  I  thought  to  myself  that  Mr.  Ford  was 
the  kind  of  business  man  you  read  about  in  novels ;  one 
who,  when  he  says  "nine,"  does  n't  mean  five  minutes 
after  nine,  but  nine  sharp.  If  you  are  n't  there  your 
chance  is  gone.  You  are  a  ruined  man. 

96 


Of  course  there  was  order  in  that  place,  of  course  there  was  system — 
relentless  system — terrible  "efficiency" — but  to  my  mind  it  expressed  but  one 
thing,  and  that  thing  was  delirium 


THE  MAECENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR 

"Very  well/'  I  said,  trying  to  speak  in  a  natural  tone, 
"we  will  be  on  hand  at  nine." 

Then  he  went  into  the  building,  and  my  companion 
and  I  debated  long  as  to  how  the  feat  should  be  accom 
plished.  He  favored  sitting  up  all  night  in  order  to  be 
safe  about  it,  but  we  compromised  at  last  on  sitting  up 
only  a  little  more  than  half  the  night. 

The  cold,  dismal  dawn  of  the  day  following  found  us 
shaved  and  dressed.  We  went  out  to  the  factory.  It 
was  a  long,  chilly,  expensive,  silent  taxi  ride.  At  five 
minutes  before  nine  we  were  there.  The  factory  was 
there.  The  clerks  were  there.  Fourteen  thousand  one 
hundred  and  eighty-seven  workmen  were  there — those 
workmen  who  divided  the  ten  millions — everything  and 
every  one  was  there  with  a  single  exception.  And  that 
exception  was  Mr.  Henry  Ford. 

True,  he  did  come  at  last.  True,  he  talked  with  us. 
But  he  was  not  there  at  nine  o'clock,  nor  yet  at  ten. 
Nor  do  I  blame  him.  For  if  I  were  in  the  place  of  Mr. 
Henry  Ford,  there  would  be  just  one  man  whom  I  should 
meet  at  nine  o'clock,  and  that  man  would  be  Meadows, 
my  faithful  valet. 

Apropos  of  that,  it  occurs  to  me  that  there  is  one  point 
of  similarity  between  Mr.  Ford  and  myself:  neither  of 
us  has  a  valet  just  at  present.  Still,  on  thinking  it  over, 
we  are  n't  so  very  much  alike,  after  all,  for  there  is  one 
of  us — I  shan't  say  which — who  hopes  to  have  a  valet 
some  day. 

Mr.  Ford's  office  is  a  room  somewhat  smaller  than  the 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

machine  shop.  It  is  situated  in  one  corner  of  the  ad 
ministration  building,  and  I  am  told  that  there  is  a  pri 
vate  entrance,  making  it  unnecessary  for  Mr.  Ford  to 
run  the  gantlet  of  the  main  doorway  and  waiting  room, 
where  there  are  almost  always  persons  waiting  to  ask 
him  for  a  present  of  a  million  or  so  in  money ;  or,  if  not 
that,  for  four  or  five  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  time — 
for  if  Mr.  Ford  makes  what  they  say,  and  does  n't  work 
overtime,  his  hour  is  worth  about  four  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars. 

He  was  n't  in  the  office  when  we  entered.  That  gave 
uc  time  to  look  about.  There  was  a  large  flat-top  desk. 
The  floor  was  covered  with  an  enormous,  costly  Oriental 
rug.  At  one  end  of  the  room,  in  a  glass  case,  was  a 
tiny  and  very  perfect  model  of  a  Ford  car.  On  the  walls 
were  four  photographs :  one  of  Mr.  James  Couzens,  vice- 
president  and  treasurer  of  the  Ford  Company ;  another, 
a  life-size  head  of  "Your  friend,  John  Wanamaker,"  and 
two  of  Thomas  A.  Edison.  Under  one  of  the  latter,  in 
the  handwriting  of  the  inventor — handwriting  which, 
oddly  enough,  resembles  nothing  so  much  as  neatly  bent 
wire — was  this  inscription: 

To  Henry  Ford,  one  of  a  group  of  men  who  have 
helped  to  make  U.  S.  A.  the  most  progressive  na 
tion  in  the  world. 

Thomas  A.  Edison. 

Presently  Mr.  Ford  came  in — a  lean  man,  of  good 

98 


THE  M^CENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR 

height,  wearing  a  rather  shabby  brown  suit.  Without 
being  powerfully  built,  Mr.  Ford  looks  sinewy,  wiry. 
His  gait  is  loose-jointed — almost  boyish.  His  manner, 
too,  has  something  boyish  about  it.  I  got  the  feeling 
that  he  was  a  little  bit  embarrassed  at  being  interviewed. 
That  made  me  sorry  for  him — I  had  been  interviewed, 
myself,  the  day  before.  When  he  sat  he  hunched  down 
in  his  chair,  resting  on  the  small  of  his  back,  with  his 
legs  crossed  and  propped  upon  a  large  wooden  waste- 
basket — the  attitude  of  a  lanky  boy.  And,  despite  his 
gray  hair  and  the  netted  wrinkles  about  his  eyes,  his  face 
is  comparatively  youthful,  too.  His  mouth  is  wide  and 
determined,  and  it  is  capable  of  an  exceedingly  dry  grin, 
in  which  the  eyes  collaborate.  They  are  fine,  keen  eyes, 
set  high  under  the  brows,  wide  apart,  and  they  seem  to 
express  shrewdness,  kindliness,  humor,  and  a  distinct 
wistfulness.  Also,  like  every  other  item  in  Mr.  Ford's 
physical  make-up,  they  indicate  a  high  degree  of  honesty. 
There  never  was  a  man  more  genuine  than  Mr.  Ford. 
He  has  n't  the  faintest  sign  of  that  veneer  so  common 
to  distinguished  men,  which  is  most  eloquently  described 
by  the  slang  term  "front."  Nor  is  he,  on  the  other  hand, 
one  of  those  men  who  (like  so  many  politicians)  try  to 
simulate  a  simple  manner.  He  is  just  exactly  Henry 
Ford,  no  more,  no  less;  take  it  or  leave  it.  If  you  are 
any  judge  at  all  of  character,  you  know  immediately 
that  Henry  Ford  is  a  man  whom  you  can  trust.  I 
would  trust  him  with  anything.  He  did  n't  ask  me  to, 
but  I  would.  I  would  trust  him  with  all  my  money. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

And,  considering  that  I  say  that,  I  think  he  ought  to  be 
willing,  in  common  courtesy,  to  reciprocate. 

He  told  us  about  the  Ford  business.  "We  Ve  done 
two  hundred  and  five  millions  of  business  to  date,"  he 
said.  "Our  profits  have  amounted  to  about  fifty-nine 
millions.  About  twenty-five  per  cent,  has  been  put  back 
into  the  business — into  the  plant  and  the  branches.  All 
the  actual  cash  that  was  ever  put  in  was  twenty-eight 
thousand  dollars.  The  rest  has  been  built  up  out  of 
profits.  Yes — it  has  happened  in  a  pretty  short  time; 
the  big  growth  has  come  in  the  last  six  years." 

I  asked  if  the  rapid  increase  had  surprised  him. 

"Oh,  in  a  way/'  he  said.  "Of  course  we  could  n't  be 
just  sure  what  she  was  going  to  do.  But  we  figured  we 
had  the  right  idea." 

"What  is  the  idea?"  I  questioned. 

Then  with  deep  sincerity,  with  the  conviction  of  a 
man  who  states  the  very  foundation  of  all  that  he  be 
lieves,  Mr.  Ford  told  us  his  idea.  His  statement  did 
not  have  the  awful  majesty  of  an  utterance  by  Mr. 
Freer.  He  did  not  flame,  although  his  eyes  did  seem  to 
glow  with  his  conviction. 

"It  is  one  model!"  he  said.  "That 's  the  secret  of  the 
whole  doggone  thing!"  (That  is  exactly  what  he  said. 
I  noted  it  immediately  for  "character.") 

Having  revealed  the  "secret,"  Mr.  Ford  directed  our 
attention  to  the  little  toy  Ford  in  the  glass  case. 

"There  she  is,"  he  said.  "She  's  always  the  same.  I 
tell  everybody  that 's  the  way  to  make  a  success.  Every 

100 


THE  M^CENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR 

manufacturer  ought  to  do  it.  The  thing  is  to  find  out 
something  that  everybody  is  after  and  then  make  that 
one  thing  and  nothing  else.  Shoemakers  ought  to  do  it. 
They  ought  to  get  one  kind  of  shoe  that  will  suit  every 
body,  instead  of  making  all  kinds.  Stove  men  ought  to 
do  it,  too.  I  told  a  stove  man  that  just  the  other  day." 

That,  I  believe,  is,  briefly,  the  business  philosophy  of 
Henry  Ford. 

"It  just  amounts  to  specializing,"  he  continued.  "I 
like  a  good  specialist.  I  like  Harry  Lauder — he  's  a 
great  specialist.  So  is  Edison.  Edison  has  done  more 
for  people  than  any  other  living  man.  You  can't  look 
anywhere  without  seeing  something  he  has  invented. 
Edison  does  n't  care  anything  about  money.  I  don't 
either.  You  've  got  to  have  money  to  use,  that 's  all. 
I  have  n't  got  any  job  here,  you  know.  I  just  go  around 
and  keep  the  fellows  lined  up." 

I  don't  know  how  I  came  by  the  idea,  but  I  was  con 
scious  of  the  thought  that  Mr.  Ford's  money  worried 
him.  He  looks  somehow  as  though  it  did.  And  it  must, 
coming  in  such  a  deluge  and  so  suddenly.  I  asked  if 
wealth  had  not  compelled  material  changes  in  his  mode 
of  life. 

"Do  you  mean  the  way  we  live  at  home?"  he  asked. 

"Yes;  that  kind  of  thing." 

"Oh,  that  has  n't  changed  to  any  great  extent,"  he 
said.  "I  've  got  a  little  house  over  here  a  ways.  It 's 
nothing  very  much — just  comfortable.  It 's  all  we  need. 
You  can  have  the  man  drive  you  around  there  on  your 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

way  back  if  you  want.  You  '11  see/'  (Later  I  did  see; 
it  is  a  very  pleasant,  very  simple  type  of  brick  suburban 
residence.) 

"Do  you  get  up  early?"  I  ventured,  having,  as  I  have 
already  intimated,  my  own  ideas  as  to  what  I  should  do 
if  I  wrere  a  Henry  Ford. 

"Well,  I  was  up  at  quarter  of  seven  this  morning,"  he 
declared.  "I  went  for  a  long  ride  in  my  car.  I  usually 
get  down  to  the  plant  around  eight-thirty  or  nine 
o'clock." 

Then  I  asked  if  the  change  had  not  forced  him  to  do 
a  deal  of  entertaining. 

"No,"  he  said.  "We  know  the  same  people  we  knew 
twenty  years  ago.  They  are  our  friends  to-day.  They 
come  to  our  house.  The  main  difference  is  that  Mrs. 
Ford  used  to  do  the  cooking.  Lately  we  've  kept  a  cook. 
Cooks  try  to  give  me  fancy  food,  but  I  won't  stand  for 
it.  They  can't  cook  as  well  as  Mrs.  Ford  either — none 
of  them  can." 

I  wish  you  could  have  heard  him  say  that!  It  was 
one  of  his  deep  convictions,  like  the  "one  model"  idea. 

"What  are  your  hobbies  outside  your  business?"  I 
asked  him. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  Mr.  Ford  looked  a  little  doubtful 
about  that.  Certainly  his  manner,  in  replying,  lacked 
that  animation  which  you  expect  of  a  golfer  or  a  yachts 
man  or  an  art  collector — or,  for  the  matter  of  that,  a 
postage-stamp  collector. 

"Oh,  I  have  my  farm  out  at  Dearborn — the  place 

1 02 


THE  M^CENAS  OF  THE  MOTOR 

where  I  was  born,"  he  replied.  "I  'm  building  a  house 
out  there — not  as  much  of  a  house  as  they  try  to  make 
out,  though.  And  I  'm  interested  in  birds,  too." 

Then,  thinking  of  Mr.  Freer,  I  inquired:  "Do  you 
care  for  art?" 

The  answer,  like  all  the  rest,  was  definite  enough. 

"I  would  n't  give  five  cents  for  all  the  art  in  the 
world,"  said  Mr.  Ford  without  a  moment's  hesitation. 

I  admired  him  enormously  for  saying  that.  So  many 
people  feel  as  he  does  in  their  hearts,  yet  would  not  dare 
to  say  so.  So  many  people  have  the  air  of  posturing 
before  a  work  of  art,  trying  to  look  intelligent,  trying  to 
"say  the  right  thing"  before  the  right  painting — the 
right  painting  as  prescribed  by  Baedeker.  True,  I  think 
the  man  who  declares  he  would  not  give  five  cents  for 
all  the  art  in  the  world  thereby  declares  himself  a  bar 
barian  of  sorts.  But  a  good,  honest,  open-hearted  bar 
barian  is  a  fine  creature.  For  one  thing,  there  is  nothing 
false  about  him.  And  there  is  nothing  soft  about  him 
either.  It  is  the  poseur  who  is  soft — soft  at  the  very 
top,  where  Henry  Ford  is  hard. 

I  saw  from  his  manner  that  he  was  becoming  restless. 
Perhaps  we  had  stayed  too  long.  Or  perhaps  he  was 
bored  because  I  spoke  about  an  abstract  thing  like  art. 

I  asked  but  one  more  question. 

"Mr.  Ford,"  I  said,  "I  should  think  that  when  a  man 
is  very  rich  he  might  hardly  know,  sometimes,  whether 
people  are  really  his  friends  or  whether  they  are  culti 
vating  him  because  of  his  money.  Is  n't  that  so  ?  " 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Mr.  Ford's  dry  grin  spread  across  his  face.  He  re 
plied  with  a  question: 

"When  people  come  after  you  because  they  want  to 
get  something  out  of  you,  don't  you  get  their  number?" 

"I  think  I  do,"  I  answered. 

'Well,  so  do  I,"  said  Mr.  Ford. 


104 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

IT  was  on  a  chilly  morning,  not  much  after  eight 
o'clock,  that  we  left  Detroit.  I  recall  that,  driv 
ing  trainward,  I  closed  the  window  of  the  taxicab; 
that  the  marble  waiting  room  of  the  new  station  looked 
uncomfortably  half  awake,  like  a  sleeper  who  has  kicked 
the  bedclothes  off,  and  that  the  concrete  platform  out 
side  was  a  playground  for  cold,  boisterous  gusts  of 
wind. 

Our  train  had  come  from  somewhere  else.  Entering 
the  Pullman  car,  we  found  it  in  its  nightime  aspect. 
The  narrow  aisle,  made  narrower  by  its  shroud  of 
long  green  curtains,  and  by  shoes  and  suit  cases  stand 
ing  beside  the  berths,  looked  cavernous  and  gloomy,  re 
minding  me  of  a  great  rock  fissure,  the  entrance  to  a 
cave  I  had  once  seen.  Like  a  cave,  too,  it  was  cold  with 
a  musty  and  oppressive  cold ;  a  cold  which  embalmed  the 
mingling  smells  of  sleep  and  sleeping  car — an  odor  as  of 
Russia  leather  and  banana  peel  ground  into  a  damp 
pulp. 

Silently,  gloomily,  without  removing  our  overcoats 
or  gloves,  we  seated  ourselves,  gingerly,  upon  the  bright 
green  plush  of  the  section  nearest  to  the  door,  and  tried 

105 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

to  read  our  morning  papers.  Presently  the  train 
started.  A  thin,  sick-looking  Pullman  conductor  came 
and  took  our  tickets,  saying  as  few  words  as  possible. 
A  porter,  in  his  sooty  canvas  coat,  sagged  miserably 
down  the  aisle.  Also  a  waiter  from  the  dining  car,  an 
nouncing  breakfast  in  a  cheerless  tone.  Breakfast! 
Who  could  think  of  breakfast  in  a  place  like  that? 
For  a  long  time,  we  sat  in  somber  silence,  without  in 
terest  in  each  other  or  in  life. 

To  appreciate  the  full  horror  of  a  Pullman  sleeping 
car  it  is  not  necessary  to  pass  the  night  upon  it ;  indeed, 
it  is  necessary  not  to.  If  you  have  slept  in  the  car,  or 
tried  to  sleep,  you  arise  with  blunted  faculties — the 
night  has  mercifully  anesthetized  you  against  the  scenes 
and  smells  of  morning.  But  if  you  board  the  car  as  we 
did,  coming  into  it  awake  and  fresh  from  out  of  doors, 
while  it  is  yet  asleep — then,  and  then  only,  do  you  real 
ize  its  enormous  ghastliness. 

Our  first  diversion — the  faintest  shadow  of  a  specula 
tive  interest — came  with  a  slight  stirring  of  the  curtains 
of  the  berth  across  the  way.  For,  even  in  the  most 
dismal  sleeping  car,  there  is  always  the  remote  chance, 
when  those  green  curtains  stir,  that  the  Queen  of  Sheba 
is  all  radiant  within,  and  that  she  will  presently  appear, 
like  sunrise. 

Over  our  newspapers  we  watched,  and  even  now  and 
then  our  curiosity  was  piqued  by  further  gentle  stirrings 
of  the  curtains.  And,  of  course,  the  longer  we  were 
forced  to  wait,  the  more  hopeful  we  became.  In  a  low 

106 


THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

voice  I  murmured  to  my  companion  the  story  of  the 
glorious  creature  I  had  seen  in  a  Pullman  one  morning 
long  ago :  how  the  curtains  had  stirred  at  first,  even  as 
these  were  stirring  now;  how  they  had  at  last  been 
parted  by  a  pair  of  rosy  finger  tips;  how  I  had  seen  a 
lovely  face  emerge;  how  her  two  braids  were  wrapped 
about  her  classic  head;  how  she  had  floated  forth  into 
the  aisle,  transforming  the  whole  car;  how  she  had 
wafted  past  me,  a  soft,  sweet  cloud  of  pink;  how  she — 
Then,  just  as  I  was  getting  to  the  interesting  part  of  it, 
I  stopped  and  caught  my  breath.  The  curtains  were  in 
final,  violent  commotion!  They  were  parting  at  the 
bottom!  Ah!  Slowly,  from  between  the  long  green 
folds,  there  appeared  a  foot.  No  filmy  silken  stocking 
covered  it.  It  was  a  foot.  There  was  an  ankle,  too — 
a  small  ankle.  Indeed,  it  was  so  small  as  to  be  a  mis 
fit,  for  the  foot  was  of  stupendous  size,  and  very  knobby. 
Also  it  was  cold ;  I  knew  that  it  was  cold,  just  as  I  knew 
that  it  was  attached  to  the  body  of  a  man,  and  that  I  did 
not  wish  to  see  the  rest  of  him.  I  turned  my  head  and, 
gazing  from  the  window,  tried  to  concentrate  my 
thoughts  upon  the  larger  aspects  of  the  world  outside, 
but  the  picture  of  that  foot  remained  with  me,  dwarfing 
all  other  things. 

I  did  not  mean  to  look  again;  I  was  determined  not 
to  look.  But  at  the  sound  of  more  activity  across  the 
way,  my  head  was  turned  as  by  some  outside  force,  and 
I  did  look,  as  one  looks,  against  one's  will,  at  some  hor 
ror  which  has  happened  in  the  street. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

He  had  come  out.  He  was  sitting  upon  the  edge  of 
his  berth,  bending  over  and  snorting  as  he  fumbled  for 
his  shoes  upon  the  floor.  Having  secured  them,  he 
pulled  them  on  with  great  contortions,  emitting  ster 
torous  sounds.  Then,  in  all  the  glory  of  his  brown 
balbriggan  undershirt,  he  stood  up  in  the  aisle.  His 
face  was  fat  and  heavy,  his  eyes  half  closed,  his  hair 
in  towsled  disarray.  His  trousers  sagged  dismally 
about  his  hips,  and  his  suspenders  dangled  down  behind 
him  like  two  feeble  and  insensate  tails.  After  rolling 
his  collar,  necktie,  shirt,  and  waistcoat  into  a  mournful 
little  bundle,  he  produced  from  inner  recesses  a  few  un 
pleasant  toilet  articles,  and  made  off  down  the  car — a 
spectacle  compared  with  which  a  homely  woman,  her 
face  anointed  with  cold  cream,  her  hair  done  in  kid 
curlers,  her  robe  a  Canton-flannel  nightgown,  would 
appear  alluring! 

Never,  since  then,  have  I  heard  men  jeering  over 
women  as  they  look  in  dishabille,  without  wondering  if 
those  same  men  have  ever  seen  themselves  clearly  in  the 
mirrored  washroom  of  a  sleeping  car. 


On  the  railroad  journey  between  Detroit  and  Bat 
tle  Creek  we  passed  two  towns  which  have  attained  a 
fame  entirely  disproportionate  to  their  size:  Ann  Ar 
bor,  with  about  fifteen  thousand  inhabitants,  celebrated 
as  a  seat  of  learning;  and  Ypsilanti,  with  about  six  thou 
sand,  celebrated  as,  so  to  speak,  a  seat  of  underwear. 

108 


THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

One  expects  an  important  college  town  to  be  well 
known,  but  a  manufacturing  town  with  but  six  thou 
sand  inhabitants  must  have  done  something  in  particu 
lar  to  have  acquired  national  reputation.  In  the  case 
of  Ypsilanti  it  has  been  done  by  magazine  advertising — 
the  advertising  of  underwear.  If  you  don't  think  so, 
look  over  the  list  of  towns  in  the  "World  Almanac." 
Have  you,  for  example,  ever  heard  of  Anniston,  Ala.? 
Or  Argenta,  Ark.  ?  Either  town  is  about  twice  the  size 
of  Ypsilanti.  Have  you  ever  heard  of  Cranston,  R.  I.; 
Butler,  Pa.,  or  Belleville,  111.?  Each  is  about  as  large 
as  Ypsilanti  and  Ann  Arbor  put  together. 

Then  there  is  Battle  Creek.  Think  of  the  amount  of 
advertising  that  town  has  had!  As  Miss  Daisy  Buck, 
the  lady  who  runs  the  news  stand  in  the  Battle  Creek 
railroad  station,  said  to  us :  "It 's  the  best  advertised 
little  old  town  of  its  size  in  the  whole  United  States/' 

And  now  it  is  about  to  be  advertised  some  more. 


We  were  total  strangers.  We  knew  nothing  of  the 
place  save  that  we  had  heard  that  it  was  full  of  health 
cranks  and  factories  where  breakfast  foods,  coffee  sub 
stitutes,  and  kindred  edibles  and  drinkables  were  made. 
How  to  see  the  town  and  what  to  see  we  did  not  know. 
We  hesitated  in  the  depot  waiting  room.  Then  fortune 
guided  our  footsteps  to  the  station  news  stand  and  its 
genial  and  vivacious  hostess.  Yes,  hostess  is  the  word  ; 
Miss  Buck  is  anything  but  a  mere  girl  behind  the 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

counten  She  is  a  reception  committee,  an  information 
bureau,  a  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend.  Her  kindly 
interest  in  the  wayfarer  seems  to  waft  forth  from  the 
precincts  of  the  news  stand  and  permeate  the  station. 
All  the  boys  know  Miss  Daisy  Buck. 

After  purchasing  some  stamps  and  post  cards  as  a 
means  of  getting  into  conversation  with  her,  we  asked 
about  the  town. 

"How  many  people  are  there  here?"  I  ventured. 

'Thirty-five/'  replied  Miss  Buck. 

"Thirty-five?"  I  repeated,  astonished. 

Though  Miss  Buck  was  momentarily  engaged  in  sell 
ing  chewing  gum  (to  some  one  else),  she  found  time  to 
give  me  a  mildly  pitying  look. 

"Thousand,"  she  added. 

The  "World  Almanac"  gives  Battle  Creek  but  twenty- 
five  thousand  population.  That,  however,  is  no  re 
proach  to  Miss  Buck;  it  is,  upon  the  contrary,  a  re 
proach  to  the  cold-hearted  statisticians  who  compiled 
that  book.  And  had  they  met  Miss  Buck  I  think  they 
would  have  been  more  liberal. 

"What  is  the  best  way  for  us  to  see  the  town  ?"  I  asked 
the  lady. 

She  indicated  a  man  who  was  sitting  on  a  station 
bench  near  by,  saying: 

"He  's  a  driver.  He  '11  take  you.  He  likes  to  ride 
around." 

"Thanks,"  I  replied,  gallantly.  "Any  friend  of 
yours — " 

no 


THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

"Can  that  stuff,"  admonished  Miss  Buck  in  her  easy, 
offhand  manner. 

I  canned  it,  and  engaged  the  driver.  His  vehicle  was 
a  typical  town  hack — a  mud-colored  chariot,  having  C 
springs,  sunken  cushions,  and  a  strong  smell  of  the 
stable.  Riding  in  it,  I  could  not  rid  myself  of  the  idea 
that  I  was  being  driven  to  a  country  burial,  and  that 
hence,  if  I  wished  to  smoke,  I  ought  to  do  it  surrepti 
tiously. 

Presently  we  swung  into  Main  Street.  I  did  not 
ask  the  name  of  the  street,  but  I  am  reasonably  cer 
tain  that  is  it.  There  was  a  policeman  on  the  corner. 
Also,  a  building  bearing  the  sign  "Old  National 
Bank." 

Old!  What  a  pleasant,  mellow  ring  the  word  has! 
How  fine,  and  philosophical,  and  prosperous,  and  hos 
pitable  it  sounds.  I  stopped  the  carriage.  Just  out  of 
sentiment  I  thought  I  would  go  in  and  have  a  check 
cashed.  But  they  did  not  act  hospitable  at  all.  They 
refused  to  cash  my  check  because  they  did  not  know 
me.  Well,  it  was  their  loss!  I  had  a  little  treat  pre 
pared  for  them.  I  meant  to  surprise  them  by  making 
them  realize  suddenly  that,  in  cashing  the  check,  they 
were  not  merely  obliging  an  obscure  stranger  but  a  fa 
mous  literary  man.  I  was  going  to  pass  the  check 
through  the  window,  saying  modestly:  "It  may  in 
terest  you  to  know  whose  check  you  have  the  honor  of 
handling."  Then  they  would  read  the  name,  and  I 
could  picture  their  excitement  as  they  exclaimed  and 


in 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

showed  the  check  around  the  bank  so  that  the  clerks 
could  see  it.  The  only  trouble  I  foresaw,  on  that  score, 
was  that  probably  they  had  not  ever  heard  of  me.  But 
I  was  going  to  obviate  that.  I  intended  to  sign  the 
check  "Rudyard  Kipling/'  That  would  have  given 
them  something  to  think  about ! 

But,  as  I  have  said,  the  transaction  never  got  that 
far. 

The  principal  street  of  Battle  Creek  may  be  with 
out  amazing  architectural  beauty,  but  it  is  at  least 
well  lighted.  On  either  curb  is  a  row  of  "boulevard 
lights,"  the  posts  set  fifty  feet  apart.  They  are  good- 
looking  posts,  too,  of  simple,  graceful  design,  each  sur 
mounted  by  a  cluster  of  five  white  globes.  This  ad 
mirable  system  of  lighting  is  in  very  general  use 
throughout  all  parts  of  the  country  excepting  the  East. 
It  is  used  in  all  the  Michigan  cities  I  visited.  I  have 
been  told  that  it  was  first  installed  in  Minneapolis,  but 
wherever  it  originated,  it  is  one  of  a  long  list  of  things 
the  East  may  learn  from  the  West. 

After  driving  about  for  a  time  we  drew  up.  Looking 
out,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  we  had  returned  again 
to  the  railway  station. 

It  was  a  station,  but  not  the  same  one. 

'This  is  the  Grand  Trunk  Deepo,"  said  the  driver, 
opening  the  carriage  door. 

"I  don't  believe  we  '11  bother  to  get  out,"  I  said. 

But  the  driver  wanted  us  to. 

112 


Never,  since  then,  have  I  heard  men  jeering  over  women  as  they 
look  in  dishabille,  without  wondering  if  those  same  men  have  ever 
seen  themselves  clearly  in  the  mirrored  washroom  of  a  sleeping  car 


THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

"You  ought  to  look  at  it,"  he  insisted.  "It 's  a  very 
pretty  station." 

So  we  got  out  and  looked  at  it,  and  were  glad  we 
did,  for  the  driver  was  quite  right.  It  was  an  unusu 
ally  pretty  station — a  station  superior  to  the  other  in 
all  respects  but  one:  it  contained  no  Miss  Daisy 
Buck. 

After  some  further  driving,  we  returned  to  the  sta 
tion  where  she  was. 

"I  suppose  we  had  better  go  to  the  Sanitarium  for 
lunch?"  I  asked  her. 

"Not  on  your  life,"  she  replied.  "If  you  go  to  the 
'San/  you  won't  feel  like  you  'd  had  anything  to  eat — • 
that  is,  not  if  you  're  good  feeders." 

"Where  else  is  there  to  go?"  I  asked. 

"The  Tavern,"  she  advised.  "You'll  get  a  first- 
class  dinner  there.  You  might  have  larger  hotels  in 
New  York,  but  you  have  n't  got  any  that 's  more  home 
like.  At  least,  that 's  what  I  hear.  I  never  was  in 
New  York  myself,  but  I  get  the  dope  from  the  traveling 


men." 


However,  not  for  epicurean  reasons,  but  because  of 
curiosity,  we  wished  to  try  a  meal  at  the  Sanitarium. 
Thither  we  drove  in  the  hack,  passing  on  our  way  the 
office  of  the  "Good  Health  Publishing  Company"  and  a 
small  building  bearing  the  sign,  "The  Coffee  Parlor" — 
which  may  signify  a  Battle  Creek  substitute  for  a 
saloon.  I  do  not  know  how  coffee  drinkers  are  re 
garded  in  that  town,  but  I  do  know  that,  while  there,  I 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

got  neither  tea  nor  coffee — unless  "Postum"  be  coffee 
and  "Kaffir  Tea"  be  tea. 

It  was  at  the  Sanitarium  that  I  drank  Kaffir  Tea.  I 
had  it  with  my  lunch.  It  looks  like  tea,  and  would  prob 
ably  taste  like  it,  too,  if  they  did  n't  let  the  Kaffirs  steep 
so  long.  But  they  should  use  only  fresh,  young,  tender 
Kaffirs;  the  old  ones  get  too  strong;  they  have  too  much 
bouquet.  The  one  they  used  in  my  tea  may  have  been 
slightly  spoiled.  I  tasted  him  all  afternoon. 

The  "San"  is  an  enormous  brick  building  like  a  vast 
summer  hotel.  It  has  an  office  which  is  utterly  hotel- 
like,  too,  even  to  the  chairs,  scattered  about,  and  the 
people  sitting  in  them.  Many  of  the  people  look  per 
fectly  well.  Indeed,  I  saw  one  young  woman  who 
looked  so  well  that  I  could  n't  take  my  eyes  off  from  her 
while  she  remained  in  view.  She  was  in  the  elevator 
when  we  went  up  to  lunch.  She  looked  at  me  with  a 
speculative  eye — a  most  engaging  eye,  it  was — as 
though  saying  to  herself :  "Now  there  's  a  promising 
young  man.  I  might  make  it  interesting  for  him  if 
he  would  stay  here  for  a  while.  But  of  course  he  'd 
have  to  show  me  a  physician's  certificate  stating  that 
he  was  not  subject  to  fits."  My  companion  said  that 
she  looked  at  him  a  long  while,  too,  but  I  doubt 
that.  He  was  always  claiming  that  they  looked  at 
him. 

The  people  who  run  the  Sanitarium  are  Seventh-Day 
Adventists,  and  as  we  arrived  on  Saturday  it  was  the 
Sabbath  there — a  rather  busy  day,  I  take  it,  from  the 

114 


THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

bulletin  which  was  printed  upon  the  back  of  the  din 
ner  menu: 

7.20  A.  M.     Morning  Worship  in  the  Parlor. 
740  to  8.40  A.  M.     BREAKFAST. 
9.45  A.  M.     Sabbath  School  in  the  Chapel, 
ii  A.  M.     Preaching  Service  in  the  Chapel. 
12.30  to  2  P.  M.     DINNER. 
3.30  P.  M.     Missionary  talk. 
5.30  to  6  P.  M.     Cashier's  office  open. 
6  to  645  P.  M.     SUPPER. 
6.45  P.  M.     March  for  guests  and  patients  only. 
8  P.  M.     In  the  Gymnasium.     Basket  Ball  Game.     Admission 
25  cents. 

No  food  to  be  taken  from  the  Dining  Room. 

The  last  injunction  was  not  disobeyed  by  us.  We 
ate  enough  to  satisfy  our  curiosity,  and  what  we  did  not 
eat  we  left. 

The  menu  at  the  Sanitarium  is  a  curious  thing. 
After  each  item  are  figures  showing  the  proportion  of 
proteins,  fats,  and  carbohydrates  contained  in  that  ar 
ticle  of  food.  Everything  is  weighed  out  exactly. 
There  was  no  meat  on  the  bill  of  fare,  but  substitutes 
were  provided  in  the  list  of  entrees:  "Protose  with 
Mayonnaise  Dressing/'  "Nuttolene  with  Cranberry 
Sauce/'  and  "Walnut  Roast." 

Suppose  you  had  to  decide  between  those  three  which 
would  you  take? 

My  companion  took  "Protose,"  while  I  elected  for 
some  reason  to  dally  with  the  "Nuttolene."  Then, 
neither  of  us  liking  what  we  got,  we  both  tried  "Wal- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

nut  Roast."  Even  then  we  would  not  give  up.  I  or 
dered  a  little  "Malt  Honey,"  while  my  companion  called 
for  a  baked  potato,  saying:  "I  know  what  a  potato  is, 
anyhow !" 

After  that  we  had  a  little  "Toasted  Granose"  and 
"Good  Health  Biscuit,"  washed  down  in  my  case  by  a 
gulp  or  two  of  "Kaffir  Tea,"  and  in  his  by  "Hot  Malted 
Nuts."  I  tried  to  get  him  to  take  "Kaffir  Tea"  with 
me,  but,  being  to  leeward  of  my  cup,  he  declined.  As 
nearly  as  we  could  figure  it  out  afterward,  he  was  far 
ahead  of  me  in  proteins  and  fats,  but  I  was  infinitely 
richer  in  carbohydrates.  In  our  indigestions  we  stood 
absolutely  even. 

There  are  some  very  striking  things  about  the  Sani 
tarium.  It  is  a  great  headquarters  for  Health  Con 
gresses,  Race  Betterment  Congresses,  etc.,  and  at  these 
congresses  strange  theories  are  frequently  put  forth. 
At  one  of  them,  recently  held,  Dr.  J.  H.  Kellogg,  head 
of  the  Sanitarium,  read  a  paper  in  which,  according  to 
newspaper  reports,  he  advocated  "human  stock  shows," 
with  blue  ribbons  for  the  most  perfectly  developed  men 
and  women.  At  the  same  meeting  a  Mrs.  Holcome 
charged  that:  "Cigarette-smoking  heroes  in  the  mod 
ern  magazine  are,  I  believe,  inserted  into  the  stories  by 
the  editors  of  publications  controlled  by  the  big  in 
terests." 

To  this  Mr.  S.  S.  McClure,  the  publisher,  replied: 
"I  have  never  inserted  cigarettes  in  heroes'  mouths.  I 

116 


'Can  that  stuff,"  admonished  Miss  Buck  in  her  easy,  offhand  manner 


THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

have  taken  them  out  lots  of  times.  But  generally  the 
authors  use  a  pipe  for  their  heroes." 

There  was  talk,  too,  about  "eugenic  weddings." 
And  a  sensation  was  caused  when  a  Southern  college 
professor  made  a  charge  that  graduates  of  modern 
women's  colleges  are  unfitted  for  motherhood.  The 
statement,  it  may  be  added,  was  vigorously  denied  by 
the  heads  of  several  leading  women's  colleges. 

Rather  wild,  some  of  this,  it  seems  to  me.  But  when 
people  gather  together  in  one  place,  intent  on  some  one 
subject,  wildness  is  almost  certain  to  develop.  One 
feels,  in  visiting  the  Sanitarium,  that,  though  many  peo 
ple  may  be  restored  to  health  there,  there  is  yet  an  air  of 
mild  fanaticism  over  all.  Health  fanaticism.  The 
passionate  light  of  the  health  hunt  flashes  in  the 
stranger's  eye  as  he  looks  at  you  and  wonders  what  is 
wrong  with  you.  And  whatever  may  be  wrong  with 
you,  or  with  him,  you  are  both  there  to  shake  it  off. 
That  is  your  sole  business  in  life.  You  are  going  to 
get  over  it,  even  if  you  have  to  live  for  weeks  on  "Nut- 
tolene"  or  other  products  of  the  diet  kitchen. 

"Nuttolene !" 

It  is  always  an  experience  for  the  sophisticated  palate 
to  meet  a  brand-new  taste.  In  "Nuttolene"  my  palate 
encountered  one,  and  before  dinner  was  over  it  met  sev 
eral  more. 

"Nuttolene"  is  served  in  a  slab,  resembling,  as  nearly 
as  anything  I  can  think  of,  a  good-sized  piece  of  shoe 
maker's  wax.  In  flavor  it  is  confusing.  Some  faint 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

taste  about  it  hinted  that  it  was  intended  to  resemble 
turkey;  an  impression  furthered  by  the  fact  that  cran 
berry  sauce  was  served  on  the  same  plate.  But  what  it 
was  made  of  I  could  not  detect.  It  was  not  unpleas 
ant  to  taste,  nor  yet  did  I  find  it  appetizing.  Rather,  I 
should  classify  it  in  the  broad  category  of  uninteresting 
food.  However,  after  such  a  statement,  it  is  but  fair  to 
add  that  the  food  I  find  most  interesting  is  almost  al 
ways  rich  and  indigestible.  Perhaps,  therefore,  I  shall 
be  obliged  to  go  to  Battle  Creek  some  day,  to  subsist  on 
"Nuttolene"  and  kindred  substances  as  penance  for  my 
gastronomic  indiscretions.  Better  men  than  I  have 
done"  that  thing — men  and  women  from  all  over  the 
globe.  And  Battle  Creek  has  benefitted  them.  Never 
theless,  I  hope  that  I  shall  never  have  to  go  there.  My 
feeling  about  the  place,  quite  without  regard  to  the  cures 
which  it  effects,  is  much  like  that  of  my  companion : 

At  luncheon  I  asked  him  to  save  his  menu  for  me, 
so  that  I  might  have  the  data  for  this  article.  He  put 
it  in  his  pocket.  But  he  kept  pulling  it  out  again,  every 
little  while,  throughout  the  afternoon,  and  suggesting 
that  I  copy  it  all  off  into  my  notebook. 

Finally  I  said  to  him: 

"What  is  the  use  in  my  copying  all  that  stuff  when 
you  have  it  right  there  in  print?  Just  keep  it  for  me. 
Then,  when  I  get  to  writing,  I  will  take  it  and  use  what 
I  want." 

"But  I  'd  rather  not  keep  it,"  he  insisted. 

"Why  not?" 

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THE  CURIOUS  CITY  OF  BATTLE  CREEK 

"Well,  there  might  be  a  railroad  wreck.  If  I  'm  killed 
I  don't  want  this  thing  to  be  found  on  me.  When  they 
went  through  my  clothes  and  ran  across  this  they  'd  say : 
'Oh,  this  does  n't  matter.  It 's  all  right.  He 's  just 
some  poor  boob  that 's  been  to  Battle  Creek/  ' 


When  we  got  out  of  the  hack  at  the  station  before 
leaving  Battle  Creek,  I  asked  the  hackman  how  the  town 
got  its  name.  He  did  n't  know.  So,  after  buying  the 
tickets,  I  went  and  asked  Miss  Daisy  Buck. 

"I  suppose,"  I  said,  "there  was  some  battle  here,  be 
side  some  creek,  wasn't  there?" 

But  for  once  Miss  Buck  failed  me. 

"You  can  search  me/'  she  replied.  Then:  "Did 
you  lunch  at  the  'San'?" 

We  admitted  it. 

"How  did  you  like  it?" 

We  informed  her. 

"What  did  you  eat — Mercerized  hay?" 

"No;  mostly  Nuttolene." 

She  sighed.     Then: 

"What  town  are  you  making  next?"  she  asked. 

"Kalamazoo,"  I  said. 

"Oh,  Ka'zoo,  eh?  What  line  are  you  gen'l'men 
travelling  in?" 

"I  'm  a  writer,"  I  replied,  "and  my  friend  here  is  an 
artist.  We  're  going  around  the  country  gathering  ma 
terial  for  a  book." 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

In  answer  to  this  statement,  Miss  Buck  simply  winked 
one  eye  as  one  who  would  say :  "You  're  some  little  liar, 
ain't  you?" 

"It 's  true/'  I  said. 

"Oh,  sure!"  said  Miss  Buck,  and  let  one  eyelid  fall 


again. 


"When  the  book  appears,"  I  continued,  "you  will  find 
that  it  contains  an  interview  with  you." 

"Also  a  picture  of  you  and  the  news  stand,"  my  com 
panion  added. 

Then  we  heard  the  train. 

Takmg  up  our  suit  cases,  we  thanked  Miss  Buck  for 
the  assistance  she  had  rendered  us. 

"I  'm  sure  you  're  quite  welcome,"  she  replied.  "I 
meet  all  kinds  here — including  kidders." 

That  was  some  months  ago.  No  doubt  Miss  Buck 
may  have  forgotten  us  by  now.  But  when  she  sees 
this — as,  being  a  news-stand  lady,  I  have  reason  to  hope 
she  will — I  trust  she  may  remember,  and  admit  that 
truth  has  triumphed  in  the  end. 


120 


CHAPTER  IX 
KALAMAZOO 

1HAD  but  one  reason  for  visiting  Kalamazoo:  the 
name  has  always  fascinated  me  with  its  zoologi 
cal  suggestion  and  even  more  with  its  rich, 
rhythmic  measure.  Indian  names  containing  "K's"  are 
almost  always  striking:  Kenosha,  Kewanee,  Kokomo, 
Keokuk,  Kankakee.  Of  these,  the  last  two,  having 
the  most  "K's"  are  most  effective.  Next  comes 
Kokomo  with  two  "K's."  But  Kalamazoo,  though  it 
has  but  one  "K,"  seems  to  me  to  take  first  place  among 
them  all,  phonetically,  because  of  the  finely  assorted 
sound  contained  in  its  four  syllables.  There  is  a  kick 
in  its  "K,"  a  ring  in  its  "L,"  a  buzz  in  its  "Z,"  and  a 
glorious  hoot  in  its  two  final  "O's." 

I  wish  here  to  protest  against  the  abbreviated  title 
frequently  bestowed  upon  the  town  by  newspapers  in 
Detroit  and  other  neighboring  cities.  They  call  it 
"Ka'zoo." 

Ka'zoo,  indeed !  For  shame !  How  can  men  take  so 
fine  a  name  and  treat  it  lightly?  True,  it  is  a  little  long 
for  easy  handling  in  a  headline,  but  that  does  not  justify 
indignity.  If  headline  writers  cannot  handle  it  con 
veniently  they  should  not  change  the  name,  but  rather 

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change  their  type,  or  make-up.  If  I  owned  a  newspa 
per,  and  there  arose  a  question  of  giving  space  to  this 
majestic  name,  I  should  cheerfully  drop  out  a  baseball 
story,  or  the  love  letters  in  some  divorce  case,  or  even 
an  advertisement,  in  order  to  display  it  as  it  deserves  to 
be  displayed. 

Kalamazoo  (I  love  to  write  it  out!)  Kalamazoo,  I 
say,  is  also  sometimes  known  familiarly  as  "Celery 
Town" — the  growing  of  this  crisp  and  succulent  vege 
table  being  a  large  local  industry.  Also,  I  was  in 
formed,  more  paper  is  made  there  than  in  any  other  city 
in  the  world.  I  do  not  know  if  that  is  true.  I  only 
know  that  if  there  is  not  more  something  in  Kalamazoo 
than  there  is  in  any  other  city,  the  place  is  unique  in  my 
experience. 

From  my  own  observations,  made  during  an  evening 
walk  through  the  agreeable,  tree-bordered  streets  of 
Kalamazoo,  I  should  have  said  that  it  led  in  quite  a  dif 
ferent  field.  I  have  never  been  in  any  town  where  so 
many  people  failed  to  draw  their  window  shades,  or 
owned  green  reading  lamps,  or  sat  by  those  green- 
shaded  lamps  and  read.  I  looked  into  almost  every 
house  I  passed,  and  in  all  but  two,  I  think,  I  saw  the  self 
same  picture  of  calm,  literary  domesticity. 

One  family,  living  in  a  large  and  rather  new-looking 
house  on  Main  Street,  did  not  seem  to  be  at  home.  The 
shades  were  up  but  no  one  was  sitting  by  the  lamp. 
And,  more,  the  lamp  itself  was  different.  Instead  of  a 
plain  green  shade  it  had  a  shade  with  pictures  in  the 

122 


KALAMAZOO 

glass,  and  red  bead  fringe.  Later  I  found  out  where 
the  people  were.  They  were  playing  bridge  across  the 
street.  They  must  have  been  the  people  from  that 
house,  because  there  were  two  in  all  the  other  houses, 
whereas  there  were  four  in  the  house  where  bridge  was 
being  played. 

I  stood  and  watched  them.  The  woman  from  across 
the  street — being  the  guest,  she  was  in  evening  dress — 
wras  dummy.  She  was  sitting  back  stiffly,  her  mouth 
pursed,  her  eyes  staring  at  the  cards  her  partner  played. 
And  she  was  saying  to  herself  (and,  unconsciously,  to 
us,  through  the  window)  :  "If  /  had  played  that  hand, 
I  never  should  have  d9ne  it  that  way!" 


Kalamazoo  has  a  Commercial  Club.  What  place 
has  n't  ?  And  the  Commercial  Club  has  issued  a  book 
let.  What  Commercial  Club  has  n't  ?  This  one  bears 
the  somewhat  fanciful  title  "The  Lure  of  Kalamazoo." 

"The  Lure  of  Kalamazoo"  is  written  in  that  peculi 
arly  chaste  style  characteristic  of  Chamber  of  Com 
merce  "literature" — a  style  comparable  only  with  that 
of  railway  folders  and  summer  hotel  booklets.  It 
is  the  "Here-all-nature-seems-to-be-rejoicing"  school. 
Let  me  present  an  extract : 

Kalamazoo  is  peculiarly  a  city  of  homes — homes  varying  in 
cost  from  the  modest  cottage  of  the  laborer  to  the  palatial  house 
of  the  wealthy  manufacturer. 

The  only  place  in  which  the  man  who  wrote  that 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

slipped  up,  was  in  referring  to  the  wealthy  manufac 
turer's  "house."  Obviously  the  word  called  for  there 
is  "mansion,"  However,  in  justice  to  this  man,  and  to 
Kalamazoo,  I  ought  to  add  that  the  town  seemed  to  be 
rather  free  from  "mansions."  That  is  one  of  the  pleas- 
antest  things  about  it.  It  is  just  a  pretty,  unpretentious 
place.  Perhaps  he  actually  meant  to  say  "house,"  but 
I  doubt  it.  I  think  he  missed  a  trick.  I  think  he  failed 
to  get  the  right  word,  just  as  if  he  had  been  writing 
about  brooks,  and  had  forgotten  to  say  "purling." 

But  if  I  saw  no  "mansions,"  I  did  see  one  building  in 
Kalamazoo  the  architecture  of  which  was  distinguished. 
That  was  the  building  of  the  Western  Michigan  Nor 
mal  School — a  long,  low  structure  of  classical  design, 
with  three  fine  porticos. 

Having  a  Commercial  Club,  Kalamazoo  quite  natu 
rally  has  a  "slogan,"  too.  (A  "slogan,"  by  the  way,  is 
the  war  cry  or  gathering  cry  of  a  Highland  clan — but 
that  makes  no  difference  to  a  Commercial  Club.)  It 
is :  "In  Kalamazoo  We  Do." 

This  battle  cry  "did"  very  well  up  to  less  than  a  year 
ago;  then  it  suddenly  began  to  languish.  There  was  a 
company  in  Kalamazoo  called  the  Michigan  Buggy 
Company,  and  this  company  had  a  very  sour  failure 
last  year,  their  figures  varying  from  fact  to  the  extent 
of  about  a  million  and  a  half  dollars.  Not  satisfied 
with  dummy  accounts  and  padded  statements,  they  had, 
also,  what  was  called  a  "velvet  pay  roll."  And,  when 

124 


She  was  saying  to  herself  (and,  unconsciously,  to  us,  through  the  window) 
"If  /  had  played  that  hand,  I  never  should  have  done  it  that  way!" 


KALAMAZOO 

it  all  blew  up,  the  whole  of  Michigan  was  shaken  by  the 
shock.  Since  that  time,  I  am  informed,  the  "slogan" 
"In  Kalamazoo  We  Do"  has  not  been  in  high  favor. 


Among  the  "lures"  presented  in  the  Commercial 
Club's  booklet  are  four  hundred  and  fifty-six  lakes 
within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles  of  the  city.  I  did  n't 
count  the  lakes  myself.  I  did  n't  count  the  people 
either — not  all  of  them. 

The  "World  Almanac"  gives  the  population  of  the 
place  as  just  under  forty  thousand,  but  some  one  in 
Kalamazoo — and  I  think  he  was  a  member  of  the  Com 
mercial  Club — told  me  that  fifty  thousand  was  the  cor 
rect  figure. 

Now,  I  ask  you,  is  it  not  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
the  Commercial  Club,  being  right  in  Kalamazoo,  where 
it  can  count  the  people  every  day,  should  be  more  ac 
curate  in  its  figures  than  the  Almanac,  which  is  pub 
lished  in  far-away  New  York?  Errors  like  this  on  the 
part  of  the  Almanac  might  be  excused!,  once  or  twice, 
on  the  ground  of  human  fallibility  or  occasional  mis 
print,  but  when  the  Almanac  keeps  on  cutting  down  the 
figures  given  by  the  Commercial  Clubs  and  Chambers 
of  Commerce  of  town  after  town,  it  begins  to  look  like 
wilful  misrepresentation  if  not  actual  spitework. 

That,  to  tell  the  truth,  was  the  reason  I  walked 
around  and  looked  in  all  the  windows.  I  decided  to 
get  at  the  bottom  of  this  matter — to  find  out  the  cause 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

for  these  discrepancies,  and  if  I  caught  the  Almanac  in. 
what  appeared  to  be  a  deliberate  lie,  to  expose  it,  here. 
With  this  in  view,  I  started  to  count  the  people  myself. 
Unfortunately,  however,  I  did  not  start  early  enough 
in  the  evening.  When  I  had  only  a  little  more  than 
half  of  them  counted,  they  began  to  put  out  their  lights 
and  go  upstairs  to  bed.  And,  oddly  enough,  though 
they  leave  their  parlor  shades  up,  they  have  a  way  of 
drawing  those  in  their  bedrooms.  I  was,  therefore, 
forced  to  stop  counting. 

I  do  not  attempt  to  explain  this  Kalamazoo  custom 
with  regard  to  window  shades.  All  I  can  say  is  that, 
for  whatever  reason  they  follow  it,  their  custom  is  not 
metropolitan.  New  Yorkers  do  things  just  the  other 
way  around.  They  pull  down  their  parlor  shades,  but 
leave  their  bedroom  shades  up.  Any  one  who  has  lived 
in  a  New  York  apartment  house  in  summer  can  testify 
to  that.  Probably  it  is  all  accounted  for  by  the  fact 
that  in  a  relatively  small  city,  like  Kalamazoo,  the  cen 
sus  takers  go  around  and  count  the  people  in  the  early 
evening,  whereas  in  New  York  it  is  necessary  for  those 
who  make  the  reckoning  to  work  all  night  in  order  to — 
as  one  might  say — get  all  the  figures. 


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CHAPTER  X 
GRAND  RAPIDS  THE  "ELECT" 

1KNOW  a  man  whose  wife  is  famous  for  her  cook 
ing.  That  is  a  strange  thing  for  a  prosperous 
and  charming  woman  to  be  famous  for  to-day,  but 
it  is  true.  When  they  wish  to  give  their  friends  an 
especial  treat,  the  wife  prepares  the  dinner;  and  it  is  a 
treat,  from  "pigs  in  blankets"  to  strawberry  shortcake. 

The  husband  is  proud  of  his  wife's  cooking,  but  I 
have  often  noticed,  and  not  without  a  mild  amusement, 
that  when  we  praise  it  past  a  certain  point  he  begins  to 
protest  that  there  are  lots  of  other  things  that  she  can 
do.  You  might  think  then,  if  you  did  not  understand 
him,  that  he  was  belittling  her  talent  as  a  cook. 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  says,  in  what  he  intends  to  be  a  casual 
tone,  "she  can  cook  very  well.  But  that 's  not  all. 
She  's  the  best  mother  I  ever  saw — sees  right  into  the 
children,  just  as  though  she  were  one  of  them.  She 
makes  most  of  their  clothes,  too.  And  in  spite  of  all 
that,  she  keeps  up  her  playing — both  piano  and  harp. 
We  '11  get  her  to  play  the  harp  after  dinner." 

People  are  like  that  about  the  cities  that  they  live  in. 
They  are  like  that  in  Detroit.  They  are  afraid  that  in 
considering  the  vastness  of  the  automobile  industry, 
you  511  overlook  the  fact  that  Detroit  has  a  lot  of  other 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

business.  And  in  Grand  Rapids  they  're  the  same ; 
only  there,  of  course,  it 's  furniture. 

"Yes,"  they  say  almost  with  reluctance,  "we  do  make 
a  good  deal  of  furniture,  but  we  also  have  big  printing 
plants  and  plaster  mills,  and  a  large  business  in  automo 
bile  accessories,  and  the  metal  trades." 

They  talked  that  way  to  me.  But  I  kept  right  on 
asking  about  furniture,  just  as,  when  the  young  husband 
talks  to  me  about  his  wife's  harp  playing,  I  keep  right 
on  eating  shortcake.  That  is  no  reflection  on  her  mu 
sic  (or  her  arms!)  ;  it  is  simply  a  tribute  to  her  cook 
ing. 

Grand  Rapids  is  one  of  those  exceedingly  agreeable, 
homelike  American  cities,  which  has  not  yet  grown  to 
the  unwieldy  size.  It  is  the  kind  of  city  of  which  they 
say:  "Every  one  here  knows  every  one  else" — mean 
ing,  of  course,  that  members  of  the  older  and  more 
prosperous  families  enjoy  all  the  advantages  and  dis 
advantages  of  a  considerable  intimacy. 

To  the  visitor — especially  the  visitor  from  New 
York,  where  a  close  friend  may  be  bedridden  a  month 
without  one's  knowing  it — this  sort  of  thing  makes  a 
strong  appeal  at  first.  You  feel  that  these  people  see 
one  another  every  day;  that  they  know  all  about  one 
another,  and  like  one  another  in  spite  of  that.  It  is 
nice  to  see  them  troop  down  to  the  station,  fifteen 
strong,  to  see  somebody  off,  and  it  must  be  nice  to  be  seen 
off  like  that ;  it  must  make  you  feel  sure  that  you  have 

128 


GRAND  RAPIDS  THE  "ELECT" 

friends — a  point  upon  which  the  New  Yorker,  in  his 
heart,  has  the  gravest  doubts. 

Consider,  for  example,  my  own  case.  In  the  course 
of  my  residence  in  New  York,  I  have  lived  in  four  dif 
ferent  apartment  houses.  In  only  two  of  these  have  I 
had  even  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  any  of  the 
other  tenants.  Once  I  called  upon  some  disagreeable 
people  on  the  floor  below  who  had  complained  about  the 
noise;  once  I  had  summoned  a  doctor  who  lived  on  the 
ground  floor.  In  the  other  two  buildings  I  knew  abso 
lutely  no  one.  I  used  to  see  occasionally,  in  the  elevator 
of  one  building,  a  man  with  whom  I  was  acquainted 
years  ago,  but  he  had  either  forgotten  me  in  the  interim, 
or  he  elected  to  do  as  I  did;  that  is,  to  pretend  he  had 
forgotten.  I  had  nothing  against  him;  he  had  nothing 
against  me.  We  were  simply  bored  at  the  idea  of  talk 
ing  with  each  other  because  we  had  nothing  in  common. 

Any  New  Yorker  who  is  honest  will  admit  to  you 
that  he  has  had  that  same  experience.  He  passes  peo 
ple  on  the  street — and  sometimes  they  are  people  he  has 
known  quite  well  in  times  gone  by — yet  he  refrains 
from  bowing  to  them,  and  they  refrain  from  bowing  to 
him,  by  a  sort  of  tacit  understanding  that  bowing,  even, 
is  a  bore. 

That  is  a  sad  sort  of  situation.  But  sadder  yet  is 
the  fact  that  in  New  York  we  lose  sight  of  so  many  peo 
ple  whom  we  should  like  to  see — friends  of  whom  we 
are  genuinely  fond,  but  whose  evolutions  in  the  whirl 
pool  of  the  city's  life  are  such  that  we  don't  chance  to 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

come  in  contact  with  them.  At  first  we  try.  We  pad 
dle  toward  them  now  and  then.  But  the  very  act  of 
paddling  is  fatiguing,  so  by  and  by  we  give  it  up,  and 
either  never  see  them  any  more,  or,  running  across 
them,  once  in  a  year  or  two,  on  the  street  or  in  a  shop, 
lament  at  the  broken  intimacy,  and  make  new  resolves, 
only  to  see  them  melt  away  again  in  the  flux  and  flow 
of  New  York  life. 

I  thought  of  all  this  at  a  Sunday  evening  supper  party 
in  Grand  Rapids — a  neighborhood  supper  party  at 
which  a  dozen  or  more  people  of  assorted  ages  sat 
around  a  hospitable  table,  arguing,  explaining,  laugh 
ing,  and  chaffing  each  other  like  members  of  one  great 
glorious  family.  It  made  me  want  to  go  and  live  there, 
too.  Then  I  began  to  wonder  how  long  I  Jd  really  want 
to  live  there.  Would  I  always  want  to?  Or  would  I 
grow  tired  of  that,  just  as  I  grow  tired  of  the  contrast 
ing  coldness  of  New  York?  In  short,  I  wondered  to 
myself  which  is  the  worst:  to  know  your  neighbors 
with  a  wonderful,  terrible,  all-revealing  intimacy,  or — 
not  to  know  them  at  all.  I  have  thought  about  it  often, 
and  still  I  am  not  sure. 

The  Grand  Rapids  "Press"  fearing  that  I  might  fail  to 
notice  certain  underlying  features  of  Grand  Rapids  life, 
printed  an  editorial  at  the  time  of  my  visit,  in  which  at 
tention  was  called  to  certain  things.  Said  the  "Press" : 

It  is  n't  immediately  revealed  to  the  stranger  that  this  is  one 
of  the  clearest-thinking  communities  in  the  country.  The  rec- 

130 


GRAND  RAPIDS  THE  "ELECT" 

ords  of  the  public  library  show  the  local  demand  for  books  on 
sociology,  on  political  economy,  on  the  relations  of  labor  and  cap 
ital,  on  taxation,  on  art,  on  the  literature  that  has  some  chance 
of  permanency.  The  topics  discussed  in  the  lecture  halls,  in  the 
social  centers,  and  in  the  Sunday  gatherings,  which  are  so  pro 
nounced  a  feature  of  church  life  here,  add  to  the  testimony. 
Ida  M.  Tarbell  noticed  that  on  her  first  visit.  Her  impression 
deepened  on  her  second.  .  .  .  Without  tossing  any  bouquets  at 
ourselves  it  can  be  said  that  we  are  thinking  some  thoughts 
which  only  the  elect  in  other  cities  dream  of  thinking. 

I  should  like  to  make  some  intelligent  comment  on 
this.  I  feel,  indeed,  that  something  very  ponderous, 
and  solemn,  and  authoritative,  and  learned,  and  wise, 
and  owlish,  and  erudite,  ought  to  be  said. 

But  the  trouble  is  that  I  am  utterly  unqualified  to 
speak  in  that  way.  I  am  not  one  of  the  elect.  If  some 
one  called  me  that,  I  would  knock  him  down  if  I  could, 
and  kick  him  full  of  holes.  That  is  because  I  think  that 
the  elect  almost  invariably  elect  themselves.  They  are 
intellectual  Huertas,  and  as  such  I  generally  detest 
them.  I  merely  print  the  "Press's"  statement  because 
I  think  it  is  interesting,  sometimes,  to  see  what  a 
city  thinks,  about  itself.  For  my  own  part,  I  should 
think  more  of  Grand  Rapids  if,  instead  of  sitting  tight 
and  thinking  these  extraordinary  thoughts,  it  had  done 
more  to  carry  out  the  plan  it  had  for  its  own  beautifica- 
tion. 

That  is  not  to  say  that  it  is  not  a  pretty  city.  It  is. 
But  its  beauty  is  of  that  unconscious  kind  which  comes 
from  hills,  and  pleasant  homes,  and  lawns,  and  trees. 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

The  kind  of  beauty  that  it  lacks  is  conscious  beauty,  the 
creation  of  which  requires  the  expenditure  of  thought, 
money,  and  effort.  And  if  it  does  nothing  else  to  indi 
cate  its  intellectual  and  esthetic  soarings,  I  should  say 
that  it  might  do  well  to  discard  the  reading  lamp  in 
favor  of  the  crowbar,  if  only  for  long  enough  to  take 
the  latter  instrument,  go  down  to  the  park,  and  see  what 
can  be  done  about  that  chimney  which  rises  so  absurdly 
there. 

The  lack  of  coherent  municipal  taste  is  all  the  more 
a  reproach  to  Grand  Rapids  for  the  reason  that  taste, 
perhaps  above  all  other  qualities,  is  the  essential  char 
acteristic  of  the  city's  leading  industry. 

I  used  to  have  an  idea  that  "cheap"  furniture  came 
from  Grand  Rapids.  Perhaps  it  did.  Perhaps  it  still 
does.  I  do  not  know.  But  I  do  know  that  the  tour  I 
made  through  the  five  acres,  more  or  less,  of  rooms 
which  make  up  the  show  house  of  Berkey  &  Gay,  af 
forded  me  the  best  single  bit  of  concrete  proof  I  met, 
in  all  my  travels,  of  the  positive  growth  of  good  taste 
in  this  country. 

Just  as  the  whole  face  of  things  has  changed  archi 
tecturally  in  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years,  furnishings 
have  also  changed.  The  improved  appreciation  which 
makes  people  build  sightly  homes  makes  them  fill  those 
homes  with  furniture  of  respectable  design.  People 
are  beginning  to  know  about  the  history  of  furniture, 
to  recognize  the  characteristics  of  the  great  English 

132 


GRAND  RAPIDS  THE  "ELECT" 

furniture  designers  and  to  appreciate  the  beauty  which 
they  handed  down. 

We  went  through  the  warerooms  with  Mr.  Gay,  and 
as  I  feasted  my  eyes  upon  piece  after  piece,  set  after 
set,  of  Chippendale,  Sheraton,  Heppelwhite,  and  Adam, 
I  asked  Mr.  Gay  about  the  renaissance  which  is  upon 
us.  One  thing  I  was  particularly  curious  about:  I 
wanted  to  know  whether  the  improvement  in  furniture 
sprang  from  popular  demand  or  whether  it  had  been  in 
some  measure  forced  upon  the  public  by  the  manufac 
turers. 

Mr.  Gay  told  me  that  the  change  was  something 
which  originated  with  the  people.  "We  have  always 
wanted  to  make  beautiful  furniture,"  he  said,  "and  we 
have  helped  all  we  could,  but  a  manufacturer  of  furni 
ture  cannot  force  either  good  taste  or  bad  taste  upon 
those  who  buy.  He  has  to  offer  them  what  they  are 
willing  to  take,  for  they  will  not  buy  anything  else.  I 
know  that,  because  sometimes  we  have  tried  to  press 
matters  a  little.  Now  and  then  we  have  indulged  our 
selves  to  the  extent  of  turning  out  some  fine  pieces,  of 
one  design  or  another,  a  little  in  advance  of  public  ap 
preciation,  but  there  has  never  been  any  considerable 
sale  for  such  things."  He  indicated  a  fine  Jacobean 
library  table  of  oak.  "Take  that  piece  for  instance. 
We  made  some  furniture  like  that  twenty  or  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  but  could  sell  very  little  of  it.  People 
were  n't  ready  fo*  it  then.  Or  this  Adam  set — as  re 
cently  as  five  years  ago  we  could  n't  have  hoped  for  any- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

thing  more  than  a  few  nibbles  on  that  kind  of  thing,  but 
there  's  a  big  market  for  it  now." 

I  asked  Mr.  Gay  if  he  had  any  theories  as  to 
what  had  caused  the  development  in  popular  apprecia 
tion. 

"It  is  a  great  big  subject,"  he  said.  "I  think  the 
magazines  have  done  some  of  it.  There  have  been 
quantities  of  publications  on  house  furnishing.  And 
the  manufacturers'  catalogues  have  helped,  too.  And 
as  wealth  and  leisure  have  increased,  people  have  had 
more  time  to  give  to  the  study  of  such  things." 

On  the  train  going  to  Chicago  I  fell  into  conversation 
with  a  man  whom  I  presently  discerned  to  be  a  furni 
ture  manufacturer.  I  don't  know  who  he  was  but  he 
told  me  about  the  furniture  exposition  which  is  held  in 
Grand  Rapids  in  January  and  July  each  year.  There 
are  large  buildings  with  many  acres  of  floor  space  which 
stand  idle  and  empty  all  the  year  around,  excepting  at 
the  time  of  these  great  shows.  Last  year  more  than 
two  hundred  and  fifty  separate  manufacturers  had  ex 
hibitions,  a  large  number  of  them  being  manufacturers 
whose  factories  were  not  located  in  Grand  Rapids,  but 
who  nevertheless  found  it  profitable  to  ship  samphs  there 
and  rent  space  in  the  exhibition  buildings  in  order  to 
place  their  wares  before  the  buyers  who  gather  there 
from  all  over  the  country. 

Before  we  parted,  this  gentleman  told  me  a  story 
which,  though  he  said  it  was  an  old  one,  I  had  never 
heard  before. 

134 


GRAND  RAPIDS  THE  "ELECT" 

According  to  this  story,  there  was,  in  Grand  Rapids, 
a  very  inquisitive  furniture  manufacturer,  who  was  al 
ways  trying  to  find  out  about  the  business  done  by 
other  manufacturers.  When  he  would  meet  them  he 
would  question  them  in  a  way  they  found  exceedingly 
annoying. 

One  day,  encountering  a  rival  manufacturer  upon  the 
street,  he  stopped  him  and  began  the  usual  line  of  ques 
tions.  The  other  answered  several,  becoming  more  and 
more  irritated.  But  finally  his  inquisitor  asked  one  too 
many. 

"How  many  men  are  working  in  your  factory  now?" 
he  demanded. 

"Oh,"  said  the  other,  as  he  turned  away,  "about  two- 
thirds  of  them." 


CHICAGO 


CHAPTER  XI 
A  MIDDLE-WESTERN  MIRACLE 

IMAGINE  a  young  demigod,  product  of  a  union  be 
tween  Rodin's  "Thinker"  and  the  Winged  Victory 
of  Samothrace,  and  you  will  have  my  symbol  of 
Chicago. 

Chicago  is  stupefying.  It  knows  no  rules,  and  I 
know  none  by  which  to  judge  it.  It  stands  apart  from 
all  the  cities  in  the  world,  isolated  by  its  own  individu 
ality,  an  Olympian  freak,  a  fable,  an  allegory,  an  in 
comprehensible  phenomenon,  a  prodigious  paradox  in 
which  youth  and  maturity,  brute  strength  and  soaring 
spirit,  are  harmoniously  confused. 

Call  Chicago  mighty,  monstrous,  multifarious,  vital, 
lusty,  stupendous,  indomitable,  intense,  unnatural,  as 
piring,  puissant,  preposterous,  transcendent — call  it 
what  you  like — throw  the  dictionary  at  it!  It  is  all 
that  you  can  do,  except  to  shoot  it  with  statistics.  And 
even  the  statistics  of  Chicago  are  not  deadly,  as  most 
statistics  are. 

First,  you  must  realize  that  Chicago  stands  fourth 
in  population  among  the  cities  of  the  world,  and  second 
among  those  of  the  Western  Hemisphere.  Next  you 
must  realize  that  there  are  people  still  alive  who  were 

139 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

alive  when  Chicago  did  not  exist,  even  as  a  fort  in  a 
swamp  at  the  mouth  of  the  Chicago  River — the  river 
from  which,  by  the  way,  the  city  took  its  name,  and 
which  in  turn  took  its  own  name  from  an  Indian  word 
meaning  "skunk." 

I  do  not  claim  that  there  are  many  people  still  alive 
who  were  alive  when  Chicago  was  n't  there  at  all,  or 
that  such  people  are  feeling  very  active,  or  that  they  re 
member  much  about  it,  for  in  102  years  a  man  forgets 
a  lot  of  little  things.  Nevertheless,  there  arc  living 
men  older  than  Chicago. 

Just  one  hundred  years  ago  Fort  Dearborn,  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river,  was  being  rebuilt,  after  a  massacre 
by  the  Indians.  Eighty-five  years  ago  Chicago  was  a 
village  of  one  hundred  people.  Sixty-five  years  ago 
this  village  had  grown  into  a  city  of  approximately  the 
present  size  of  Evanston — a  suburb  of  Chicago,  with 
less  than  thirty  thousand  people.  Fifty-five  years  ago 
Chicago  had  something  over  one  hundred  thousand  in 
habitants.  Forty-five  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  the 
Chicago  fire,  the  city  was  as  large  as  Washington  is 
now — over  three  hundred  thousand.  In  the  ten  years 
which  followed  the  disaster,  Chicago  was  not  only  en 
tirely  rebuilt,  and  very  much  improved,  but  also  it  in 
creased  in  population  to  half  a  million,  or  about  the 
size  of  Detroit.  In  the  next  decade  it  actually  doubled 
in  size,  so  that,  twenty-five  years  ago,  it  passed 
the  million  mark.  Soon  after  that  it  pushed  Phila- 

140 


A  MIDDLE-WESTERN  MIRACLE 

delphia  from  second  place  among  American  cities.  So 
it  has  gone  on,  until  to-day  it  has  a  population  of  two 
million,  plus  a  city  of  about  the  size  of  San  Francisco 
for  full  measure. 

There  are  the  statistics  in  a  capsule  paragraph.  I 
hope  you  will  feel  better  in  the  morning.  And  just  to 
take  the  taste  away,  here  's  another  item  which  you 
iray  like  because  of  its  curious  flavor:  Chicago  has 
more  Poles  than  any  other  city  except  Warsaw. 


One  knows  in  advance  what  a  visitor  from  Europe 
will  say  about  New  York,  just  as  one  knows  what  an 
American  humorist  will  say  about  Europe.  But  one 
never  knows  what  any  visitor  will  say  about  Chicago. 
I  have  heard  people  damn  Chicago — "up  hill  and  down" 
I  was  about  to  say,  but  I  withdraw  that,  for  the  highest 
hill  I  remember  in  Chicago  is  that  ungainly  little  bump, 
on  the  lake  front,  which  is  surmounted  by  Saint 
Gaudens'  statue  of  General  Logan. 

As  I  was  saying,  I  have  heard  people  rave  against 
Chicago  and  about  it.  Being  itself  a  city  of  extremes, 
it  seems  to  draw  extremes  of  feeling  and  expression 
from  outsiders.  For  instance,  Canon  Hannay,  who 
writes  novels  and  plays  under  the  name  of  George  A. 
Birmingham,  was  quoted,  at  the  time  of  his  recent  visit 
to  this  country,  as  saying:  "In  a  little  while  Chicago 
will  be  a  world  center  of  literature,  music,  and  art, 

141 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

British  writers  will  be  more  anxious  for  her  verdict 
than  for  that  of  London.  The  music  of  the  future  will 
be  hammered  out  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan. 
The  Paris  Salon  will  be  a  second-rate  affair/' 

Remembering  that  the  Canon  is  an  Irishman  and  a 
humorist — which  is  tautology — we  may  perhaps  dis 
count  his  statement  a  little  bit  for  blarney  and  a  little 
more  for  fun.  His  "prophecy"  about  the  Salon  seems 
to  stamp  the  interview  with  waggery,  for  certainly  it 
is  not  hard  to  prophesy  what  is  already  true — and,  as 
everybody  ought  to  know  by  now,  the  Salon  has  for 
years  been  second-rate. 

The  Chicago  Art  Institute  has  by  all  odds  the  most 
important  art  collection  I  visited  upon  my  travels. 
The  pictures  are  varied  and  interesting,  and  American 
painters  are  well  represented.  The  presence  in  the  in 
stitute  of  a  good  deal  of  that  rather  "tight"  and  "sug 
ary"  painting  which  came  to  Chicago  at  the  time  of  the 
World's  Fair,  is  to  be  regretted — a  fact  which  is,  I  have 
no  doubt,  quite  as  well  known  to  those  in  charge  of  the 
museum  as  to  anybody  else.  But  as  I  remarked  in  a 
previous  chapter,  most  museums  are  hampered,  in  their 
early  days,  by  the  gifts  of  their  rich  friends.  It  takes 
a  strong  museum  indeed  to  risk  offending  a  rich  man 
by  kicking  out  bad  paintings  which  he  offers.  Even 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  in  New  York  has  not 
always  been  so  brave  as  to  do  that. 

"Who  's  Who"  (which,  by  the  way,  is  published  in 
Chicago)  mentions  perhaps  a  score  of  Chicago  painters 

142 


A  MIDDLE-WESTERN  MIRACLE 

and  sculptors,  among  the  former  Lawton  S.  Parker 
and  Oliver  Dennett  Grover,  and  among  the  latter 
Lorado  Taft. 

There  are,  however,  many  others,  not  in  "Who 's 
Who/'  who  attempt  to  paint — enough  of  them  to  give  a 
fairly  large  and  very  mediocre  exhibition  which  I  saw. 
One  thing  is,  however,  certain:  the  Art  Institute  has 
not  the  deserted  look  of  most  other  art  museums  one 
visits.  It  is  used.  This  may  be  partly  accounted  for 
by  its  admirable  location  at  the  center  of  the  city — a 
location  more  accessible  than  that  of  any  other  museum 
I  think  of,  in  the  country.  But  whatever  the  reason, 
as  you  watch  the  crowds,  you  realize  more  than  ever  that 
Chicago  is  alive  to  everything — even  to  art. 

Years  ago  Chicago  was  musical  enough  to  support 
the  late  Theodore  Thomas  and  his  orchestra — one  of 
the  most  distinguished  organizations  of  the  kind  ever 
assembled  in  this  country.  Thomas  did  great  things  for 
Chicago,  musically.  He  started  her,  and  she  has  kept 
on.  Besides  innumerable  and  varied  concerts  which 
occur  throughout  the  season,  the  city  is  one  of  four  in 
the  country  strong  enough  to  support  a  first-rate  grand 
opera  company  of  its  own. 

About  twenty-five  musicians  of  one  sort  and  another 
are  credited  to  Chicago  by  "Who  's  Who/'  the  most  dis 
tinguished  of  them,  perhaps,  being  Fannie  Bloom- 
field  Zeisler,  the  concert  pianist.  But  it  is  the  writers 
of  Chicago  who  come  out  strongest  in  the  fat  red  vol 
ume,  among  followers  of  the  arts.  With  sinking  heart 

143 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

I  counted  about  seventy  of  these,  and  I  may  be  merely 
revealing  my  own  ignorance  when  I  add  that  the  names 
of  a  good  two-thirds  of  them  were  new  to  me.  But 
this  is  dangerous  ground;  Without  further  comment 
let  me  say  that  among  the  seventy  I  found  such  names 
as  Robert  Herrick,  Henry  B.  Fuller,  Hamlin  Garland, 
Emerson  Hough,  Henry  Kitchell  Webster,  Maud  Rad- 
ford  Warren,  Opie  Read,  and  Clara  Louise  Burnham — 
a  hatful  of  them  which  you  may  sort  and  classify  ac 
cording  to  your  taste. 


Canon  Hannay  said  he  felt  at  home  in  Chicago.  So 
did  Arnold  Bennett.  Canon  Hannay  said  Chicago  re 
minded  him  of  Belfast.  Arnold  Bennett  said  Chicago 
reminded  him  of  the  "Five  Towns,"  made  famous  in 
his  novels.  Even  Baedeker  breaks  away  from  his  usual 
nonpartizan  attitude  long  enough  to  say  with  what,  for 
Baedeker,  is  nothing  less  than  an  outburst  of  passion: 
"Great  injustice  is  done  to  Chicago  by  those  who  repre 
sent  it  as  wholly  given  over  to  the  worship  of  Mammon, 
as  it  compares  favorably  with  a  great  many  American 
cities  in  the  efforts  it  has  made  to  beautify  itself  by  the 
creation  of  parks  and  boulevards  and  in  its  encourage 
ment  of  education  and  the  liberal  arts." 

Baedeker  is  quite  right  about  that.  He  might  also 
have  added  that  the  "Windy  City"  is  not  so  windy  as 
New  York,  and  that  the  old  legend,  now  almost  for 
gotten,  to  the  effect  that  Chicago  girls  have  big  feet  is 

144 


Rodin's  "Thinker' 


A  MIDDLE-WESTERN  MIRACLE 

equally  untrue.  There  is  still  some  wind  in  Chicago; 
thanks  to  it  and  to  the  present  mode  in  dress,  I  was 
able  to  assure  myself  quite  definitely  upon  the  size  of 
Chicago  feet.  I  not  only  saw  them  upon  the  streets;  I 
saw  them  also  at  dances:  twinkling,  slippered  feet  as 
small  as  any  in  the  land ;  and,  again  owing  to  the  pres 
ent  mode,  I  saw  not  only  pretty  feet,  but  also —  How 
ever,  I  am  digressing.  That  is  enough  about  feet.  I 
fear  I  have  already  let  them  run  away  with  me. 


A  friend  of  mine  who  visited  Chicago  for  the  first 
time,  a  year  ago,  came  back  appreciative  of  her  wonders, 
but  declaring  her  provincial. 

"Why  do  you  say  provincial?"  I  asked. 

"Because  you  can't  pick  up  a  taxi  in  the  street/'  he 
said. 

And  it  is  true.  I  was  chagrined  at  his  discovery — 
not  so  much  because  of  its  truth,  however,  as  because  it 
was  the  discovery  of  a  New  Yorker.  I  always  defend 
Chicago  against  New  Yorkers,  for  I  love  the  place, 
partly  for  itself  and  partly  because  I  was  born  and 
spent  my  boyhood  there. 

I  know  a  great  many  other  ex-Chicagoans  who  now  live 
in  New  York,  as  I  do,  and  I  have  noticed  with  amuse 
ment  that  the  side  we  take  depends  upon  the  society  in 
which  we  are.  If  we  are  with  Chicagoans,  we  defend 
New  York;  if  with  New  Yorkers,  we  defend  Chicago. 
We  are  like  those  people  in  the  circus  who  stand  upon 

145 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  backs  of  two  horses  at  once.  Only  among  ourselves 
do  we  go  in  for  candor. 

The  other  day  I  met  a  man  and  his  wife,  transplanted 
Chicagoans,  on  the  street  in  New  York. 

"How  long  have  you  been  here?"  I  asked. 

"Three  years/'  said  the  husband. 

"Why  did  you  come?" 

"For  business  reasons." 

"How  do  you  like  the  change?" 

The  husband  hesitated.  "Well,  I  Ve  done  a  great 
deal  better  here  than  I  ever  did  in  Chicago,"  he  said. 

"How  do  you  like  it?"  I  asked  the  wife. 

"New  York  gives  us  more  advantages,"  she  said, 
"but  I  prefer  Chicago  people." 

"Would  you  like  to  go  back?" 

The  wife  hesitated,  but  the  husband  shook  his  head. 

"No,"  he  repliedt  "there 's  something  about  New 
York  that  gets  into  your  blood.  To  go  back  to  Chicago 
would  seem  like  retrograding." 

Among  my  notes  I  find  the  record  of  a  conversation 
with  a  New  York  girl  who  married  a  Chicago  man  and 
went  out  there  to  live. 

"I  was  very  lonely  at  first,"  she  said.  "One  day  a 
man  came  around  selling  pencils.  I  happened  to  see 
him  at  the  door.  He  said :  T  'm  an  actor,  and  I  'm 
trying  to  raise  money  to  get  back  to  New  York/  As  I 
was  feeling  then  I  'd  have  given  him  anything  in  the 
house  just  because  that  was  where  he  wanted  to  go.  I 

146 


A  MIDDLE-WESTERN  MIRACLE 

gave  him  some  money.  'Here/  I  said,  'you  take  this 
and  go  on  back  to  New  York/  'Why/  he  inquired, 
'are  you  from  New  York,  too?'  I  said  I  was.  Then 
he  asked  me:  'What  are  you  doing  away  out  here?' 
'Oh/  I  told  him,  'this  is  my  home  now.  I  live  here/ 
He  thanked  me,  and  as  he  put  the  money  in  his  pocket 
he  shook  his  head  and  said:  'Too  bad!  Too  bad!' 

"That  will  show  you  how  I  felt  at  first.  But  when 
I  came  to  know  Chicago  people  I  liked  them.  And  now 
I  would  n't  go  back  for  anything." 

There  is  testimony  from  both  sides. 

With  the  literary  man  the  situation  is,  perhaps,  a  lit 
tle  different.  New  York  is  practically  his  one  big  mar 
ket  place.  I  was  speaking  about  that  the  other  day 
with  an  author  who  used  to  live  in  Chicago. 

"The  atmosphere  out  there  is  not  nearly  so  stimu 
lating  for  a  writer,"  he  assured  me.  "Here,  in  New 
York,  even  a  pretty  big  writer  is  lost  in  the  shuffle. 
There,  he  is  a  shining  mark.  The  Chicago  writers 
are  likely  to  be  a  little  bit  self-conscious  and  naive. 
They  have  their  own  local  literary  gods,  and  they're 
rather  inclined  to  sit  around  and  talk  solemnly  about 
'Art  with  a  capital  A/  " 


Necessarily,  when  the  adherents  of  two  cities  start 
an  argument,  they  are  confined  to  concrete  points. 
They  talk  about  opera  and  theaters  and  buildings  and 
hotels  and  stores,  and  seldom  touch  upon  such  subtle 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

things  as  city  spirit.  For  spirit  is  a  hard  thing  to  deal 
with  and  a  harder  thing  to  prove.  Yet  "greatness 
knows  itself."  Chicago  unquestionably  knows  that  it 
is  great,  and  that  its  greatness  is  of  the  spirit.  But  the 
Chicagoan,  debating  in  favor  of  his  city,  is  unable  to 
"get  that  over,"  and  is  therefore  obliged  to  fall  back 
upon  two  last,  invariable  defenses :  the  department  store 
of  Marshall  Field  &  Co.  and  the  Blackstone  Hotel. 

The  Blackstone  he  will  tell  you,  with  an  eye  lit  by 
fanatical  belief,  is  positively  the  finest  hotel  in  the  whole 
United  States.  Mention  the  Ritz,  the  Plaza,  the  St. 
Regis,  the  Biltmore,  or  any  other  hotel  to  him,  and  it 
makes  no  difference;  the  Blackstone  is  the  best.  As  to 
Marshall  Field's,  he  is  no  less  positive :  It  is  not  merely 
the  largest  but  also  the  very  finest  store  in  the  whole 
world. 

I  have  never  stopped  at  any  of  those  hotels  with 
which  the  New  Yorker  would  attempt  to  defeat  the 
Blackstone.  But  I  have  stopped  at  the  Blackstone,  and 
it  is  undeniably  a  very  good  hotel.  One  of  the  most 
agreeable  things  about  it  is  the  air  of  willing  service 
which  one  senses  in  its  staff.  It  is  an  excellent  man 
ager  who  can  instil  into  his  servants  that  spirit  which 
causes  them  to  seem  to  be  eternally  on  tiptoe — not  for 
a  tip  but  for  a  chance  to  serve.  Further,  the  Blackstone 
occupies  a  position,  with  regard  to  the  fashionable  life 
of  Chicago,  which  is  not  paralleled  by  any  single  hotel 
in  New  York.  Socially  it  is  preeminently  the  place. 

General  dancing  in  such  public  restaurants  as  Rec- 

148 


A  MIDDLE-WESTERN  MIRACLE 

tor's — the  original  Rector's  is  in  Chicago,  you  know — 
and  in  the  dining  rooms  of  some  hotels,  was  started  in 
Chicago,  but  was  soon  stopped  by  municipal  regula 
tion.  Since  that  time  other  schemes  have  been  de 
vised.  Dances  are  held  regularly  in  the  ballrooms  of 
most  of  the  hotels,  but  are  managed  as  clubs  or  semi- 
private  gatherings.  This  arrangement  has  its  advan 
tages.  It  would  have  its  advantages,  indeed,  if  it  did 
nothing  more  than  put  the  brakes  on  the  dancing  craze 
— as  any  one  can  testify  who  has  seen  his  friends  offer 
ing  up  their  business  and  their  brains  as  a  sacrifice  to 
Terpsichore.  But  that  is  not  what  I  started  to  say. 
The  advantage  of  the  system  which  was  in  vogue  at 
the  Blackstone,  when  I  was  there,  is  that,  to  get  into 
the  ballroom  people  must  be  known;  wherefore  ladies 
who  still  have  doubts  as  to  the  propriety  of  dancing 
in  a  public  restaurant  need  not,  and  do  not,  hesitate  to 
go  there  and  dance  to  their  toes'  content. 


149 


CHAPTER  XII 
FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

OF  course  we  visited  Marshall  Field's. 
The  very  obliging  gentleman  who  -showed 
us   about  the   inconceivably  enormous   build 
ings,   rushing  from  floor  to  floor,  poking  in  and  out 
through  mysterious,  baffling  doors  and  passageways, 
now  in  the  public  part  of  the  store  where  goods  are 
sold,  now  behind  the  scenes  where  they  are  made  — 
this  gentleman  seemed  to  have  the  whole  place  in  his 
head — almost  as  great  a  feat  as  knowing  the  whole 
world  by  heart. 

"How  much  time  can  you  spare?"  he  asked  as  we 
set  out  from  the  top  floor,  where  he  had  shown  us  a 
huge  recreation  room,  gymnasium,  and  dining  room,  all 
for  the  use  of  the  employees. 

"How  long  should  it  take?" 

"It  can  be  done  in  two  hours,"  he  said,  "if  we  keep 
moving  all  the  time." 

"All  right,"  I  said — and  we  did  keep  moving. 
Through  great  rooms  full  of  trunks,  of  brass  beds, 
through  vast  galleries  of  furniture,  through  restaurants, 
grilles,  afternoon  tea  rooms,  rooms  full  of  curtains  and 
coverings  and  cushions  and  corsets  and  waists  and  hats 

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FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

and  carpets  and  rugs  and  linoleum  and  lamps  and  toys 
and  stationery  and  silver,  and  Heaven  only  knows  what 
else,  over  miles  and  miles  of  pleasant,  soft,  green  car 
pet,  I  trotted  along  beside  the  amazing  man  who  not 
only  knew  the  way,  but  seemed  even  to  know  the  clerks. 
Part  of  the  time  I  tried  to  look  about  me  at  the  phan 
tasmagoria  of  things  with  which  civilization  has  en 
cumbered  the  human  race;  part  of  the  time  I  listened 
to  our  cicerone;  part  of  the  time  I  walked  blindly, 
scribbling  notes,  while  my  companion  guided  my  steps. 

Here  are  some  of  the  notes : 

Ten  thousand  employees  in  retail  store Choral 

society,  two  hundred  members,  made  up  of  sales-peo 
ple Twelve  baseball  teams  in  retail  store;  twelve 

in  wholesale;  play  during  season,  and,  finally,  for  cham 
pionship  cup,  on  "Marshall  Field  Day" Lectures 

on  various  topics,  fabrics,  etc.,  for  employees,  also  for 

outsiders:  women's  clubs,  etc. Employees'  lunch: 

soup,  meat,  vegetables,  etc.,  sixteen  cents Largest 

retail  custom  dressmaking  business  in  the  country 

Largest  business  in  ready-made  apparel Largest 

retail  millinery  business Largest  retail  shoe  busi 
ness Largest  branch  of  Chicago  public  library 

(for  employees) Largest  postal  sub-station  in 

Chicago Largest — largest — largest ! 

Now  and  then  when  something  interested  me  par 
ticularly  we  would  pause  and  catch  our  breath.  Once 
we  stopped  for  two  or  three  minutes  in  a  fine  school- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

room,  where  some  stock-boys  and  stock-girls  were  hav 
ing  a  lesson  in  fractions — "to  fit  them  for  better  posi 
tions/'  Again  we  paused  in  a  children's  playroom, 
where  mothers  left  their  youngsters  while  they  went  to 
do  their  shopping,  and  where  certain  youngsters,  thus 
deposited,  were  having  a  gorgeous  time,  sliding  down 
things,  and  running  around  other  things,  and  crawling 
over  and  under  still  other  things.  Still  again  we 
paused  at  the  telephone  switchboard — a  switchboard 
large  enough  to  take  care  of  the  entire  business  of  a 
city  of  the  size  of  Springfield,  the  capital  of  Illinois. 
And  still  again  we  paused  at  the  postal  sub-station,  where 
fifty  to  sixty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  stamps  are 
sold  in  a  year,  and  which  does  as  great  a  postal  busi 
ness,  in  the  holiday  season,  as  the  whole  city  of  Mil 
waukee  does  at  the  same  period. 

At  one  time  we  would  be  walking  through  a  great 
shirt  factory,  set  off  in  one  corner  of  that  endless 
building,  all  unknown  to  the  shoppers  who  never  get 
behind  the  scenes ;  then  we  would  pop  out  again  into  the 
dressed-up  part  of  the  store,  just  as  one  goes  from  the 
kitchen  and  the  pantry  of  a  house  into  the  formality  of 
dining  room  and  drawing  room.  And  as  we  appeared 
thus,  and  our  guide  was  recognized  as  the  assistant 
manager  of  all  that  kingdom,  with  its  population  of  ten 
thousand,  saleswomen  would  rise  suddenly  from  seats, 
little  gossiping  groups  would  disperse  quickly,  and  floor 
men,  who  had  been  talking  with  saleswomen,  would 
begin  to  occupy  themselves  with  other  matters.  I  re- 

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FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

member  coming  upon  a  "silence  room"  for  saleswomen 
—a  large,  dark,  quiet  chamber,  in  which  was  an  attend 
ant;  also  a  saleswoman  who  was  restlessly  resting  by 
rocking  herself  in  a  chair.  And  as  we  moved  through 
the  store  we  kept  taking  off  our  hats  as  we  went  behind 
the  scenes,  and  putting  them  on  as  we  emerged  into  the 
public  parts.  Never  before  had  I  realized  how  much 
of  a  department  store  is  a  world  unseen  by  shoppers. 
At  one  point,  in  that  hidden  world,  a  vast  number  of 
women  were  sewing  upon  dresses.  I  had  hardly  time 
to  look  upon  this  picture  when,  rushing  through  a  little 
door,  in  pursuit  of  my  active  guide,  I  found  myself  in 
a  maze  of  glass,  and  long-piled  carpets,  and  mahogany, 
and  electric  light,  and  pretty  frocks,  disposed  about  on 
forms.  Also  disposed  about  were  many  "perfect  thirty- 
sixes,"  with  piles  of  taffy-colored  hair,  doing  the  "debu 
tante  slouch"  in  their  trim  black  costumes,  so  slinky  and 
alluring.  Here  I  had  a  strong  impulse  to  halt,  to 
pause  and  examine  the  carpets  and  woodwork,  and 
one  thing  and  another.  But  no!  Our  guardian  had 
a  professional  pride  in  getting  us  through  the  store 
within  two  hours,  according  to  his  promise.  I  would 
gladly  have  allowed  him  an  extra  ten  minutes  if  I  could 
have  spent  it  in  that  place,  but  on  we  went — my  com 
panion  and  I  dragging  behind  a  little  and  looking  back 
ward  at  the  Lorelei — I  remember  that,  because  I  ran 
into  a  man  and  knocked  my  hat  off. 

At  last  we  came  to  the  information  bureau,  and  as 
there  was  a  particularly  attractive  young  person  behind 

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the  desk,  it  occurred  to  me  that  this  would  be  a  fine 
time  to  get  a  little  information. 

"I  wonder  if  I  can  stump  that  sinuous  sibyl/'  I  said. 

"Try  it,"  said  our  conductor. 

So  I  went  over  to  her  and  asked :  "How  large  is  this 
store,  please?" 

"You  mean  the  building?" 

"Yes." 

"There  is  fifty  acres  of  floor  space  under  this  roof," 
she  said.  "There  are  sixteen  floors:  thirteen  stories 
rising  two  hundred  and  fifty-eight  feet  above  the  street, 
and  three  basements,  extending  forty-three  and  a  half 
feet  below.  The  building  takes  up  one  entire  block. 
The  new  building  devoted  exclusively  to  men's  goods  is 
just  across  Washington  Street.  That  building  is — " 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  I  said.  "That 's  all  I  want 
to  know  about  that.  Can  you  tell  me  the  population  of 
Chicago?" 

"Two  million  three  hundred  and  eighty-eight  thou 
sand  five  hundred,"  she  said  glibly,  showing  me  her 
pretty  teeth. 

Then  I  racked  my  brains  for  a  difficult  question. 

"Now,"  I  said,  "will  you  please  tell  me  where  Charles 
Towne  was  born?" 

"Do  you  mean  Charles  A.  Towne,  the  lawyer ;  Charles 
Wayland  Towne,  the  author;  or  Charles  Hanson 
Towne,  the  poet?"  she  demanded. 

I  managed  to  say  that  I  meant  the  poet  Towne. 

"He  was  born  in  Louisville,  Kentucky,"  she  informed 

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FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

me  sweetly.  She  even  gave  me  the  date  of  his  birth,  too, 
but  as  the  poet  is  a  friend  of  mine,  I  will  suppress  that. 

"Is  that  all?"  she  inquired  presently,  seeing  that  I 
was  merely  gazing  at  her. 

"Yes,  you  adorable  creature."  The  first  word  of 
that  sentence  is  all  that  I  really  uttered.  I  only  thought 
the  rest. 

"Very  well,"  she  replied,  shutting  the  book  in  which 
she  had  looked  up  the  Townes. 

"Thanks  very  much,"  I  said. 

"Don't  mention  it,"  said  she — and  went  about  her 
business  in  a  way  that  sent  me  about  mine. 

Aside  from  its  vastness  and  the  variety  of  its  activi 
ties,  two  things  about  Marshall  Field's  store  interested 
me  particularly.  One  is  the  attitude  maintained  by  the 
company  with  regard  to  claims  made  in  the  advertising 
of  "sales."  When  there  is  a  "sale"  at  Field's  compari 
sons  of  values  are  not  made.  It  may  be  said  that  cer 
tain  articles  are  cheap  at  the  price  at  which  they  are 
being  offered,  but  it  is  never  put  in  the  form:  "Was 
$5.  Now  $2.50."  Field's  does  not  believe  in  that. 

"We  take  the  position,"  an  official  explained  to  me, 
"that  things  are  worth  what  they  will  bring.  For  in 
stance,  if  some  manufacturer  has  made  too  many  over 
coats,  and  we  are  able  to  get  them  at  a  bargain,  or  if 
there  is  a  mild  winter  and  overcoats  do  not  sell  well,  we 
may  place  on  sale  a  lot  of  coats  which  were  meant  to  be 
sold  at  $40,  but  which  we  are  willing  to  sell  at  $22.50. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

In  such  a  case  we  never  advertise  'Worth  $40.'  We 
just  point  out  that  these  are  exceptionally  good  coats 
for  the  money.  And,  when  we  say  that,  it  is  invariably 
true.  This  advertising  is  not  so  sensational  as  it  could 
be  made,  of  course,  but  we  think  that  in  the  long  run  it 
teaches  people  to  rely  upon  us." 

Another  thing  which  interested  me  in  Field's  was  the 
appearance  of  the  saleswomen.  They  do  not  look  like 
New  York  saleswomen.  In  the  aggregate  they  look 
happier,  simpler,  and  more  natural.  I  saw  no  women 
behind  the  counters  there  who  had  the  haughty,  indif 
ferent  bearing,  the  nose-in-the-air,  to  which  the  New 
York  shopper  is  accustomed.  Among  these  women,  no 
less  than  among  the  rich,  the  Chicago  spirit  seemed  to 
show  itself.  It  is  everywhere,  that  spirit.  I  admit 
that,  perhaps,  it  does  not  go  with  omnipresent  taxicabs. 
I  admit  that  there  are  more  effete  cities  than  Chicago. 
The  East  is  full  of  them.  But  that  any  city  in  the 
country  has  more  sterling  simplicity,  greater  freedom 
from  sham  and  affectation  among  all  classes,  more 
vigorous  cultivation,  or  more  well-bred  wealth,  I  re 
spectfully  beg  to  doubt. 

No,  I  have  not  forgotten  Boston  and  Philadelphia. 


In  an  earlier  chapter  I  told  of  a  man  I  met  upon  a 
train  who,  though  he  lived  in  Buffalo,  had  never 
seen  Niagara  Falls.  In  Chicago  it  occurred  to  me  that, 
though  I  had  worked  on  a  newspaper,  I  had  never  stood 

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FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

as  an  observer  and  watched  a  newspaper  "go  through." 
So,  one  Saturday  night  after  sitting  around  the  city 
room  of  the  Chicago  "Tribune" — which  is  one  of  the 
world's  great  newspapers — and  talking  with  a  group  of 
men  as  interesting  as  any  men  I  ever  found  together, 
I  was  placed  m  charge  of  James  Durkin,  the  world's 
most  eminent  office  boy,  who  forthwith  took  me  to  the 
nether  regions  of  the  "Tribune"  Building. 

With  its  floor  of  big  steel  plates,  its  towering  presses, 
vast  and  incomprehensible,  and  its  grimy  men  in  over 
alls,  the  pressroom  struck  me  as  resembling  nothing  so 
much  as  the  engine  room  of  an  ocean  liner. 

The  color  presses  were  already  roaring,  shedding 
streams  of  printed  paper  like  swift  waterfalls,  down 
which  shot  an  endless  chain  of  Mona  Lisas — for  the 
Mona  Lisa  took  the  whole  front  page  of  the  "Tribune" 
colored  supplement  that  week.  At  the  bottom,  where 
the  "folder"  put  the  central  creases  in  them,  the  paper 
torrents  narrowed  to  a  disappearing  point,  giving  the 
illusion  of  a  subterranean  river,  vanishing  beneath  the 
floor.  But  the  river  did  n't  vanish.  It  was  caught,  and 
measured,  and  folded,  and  cut,  and  counted  by  ma 
chinery,  as  swift,  as  eye-defying,  as  a  moving  picture; 
machinery  which  miraculously  converted  a  cataract  into 
prim  piles  of  Sunday  newspapers,  which  were,  in  turn, 
gathered  up  and  rushed  away  to  the  mailing  room — 
whither,  presently,  we  followed. 

In  the  mailing  room  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  a 
machine  with  which,  if  it  had  not  been  so  busy,  I  should 

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have  liked  to  shake  hands,  and  sit  down  somewhere  for 
a  quiet  chat.  For  it  was  a  machine  possessed  of  the 
Chicago  spirit:  modest,  businesslike,  effective,  and 
highly  intelligent.  I  did  not  interrupt  it,  but  watched 
it  at  its  work.  And  this  is  what  it  did :  It  took  Sunday 
papers,  one  by  one,  from  a  great  pile  which  was  handed 
to  it  every  now  and  then,  folded  them  neatly,  wrapped 
them  in  manila  paper,  sealed  them  up  with  mucilage, 
squeezed  them,  so  that  the  seal  would  hold,  addressed 
them  to  out-of-town  subscribers  and  dropped  them  into 
a  mail  sack.  There  was  a  man  who  hovered  about, 
acting  as  a  sort  of  valet  to  this  highly  capable  machine, 
but  all  he  had  to  do  was  to  bring  it  more  newspapers 
from  time  to  time,  and  to  take  away  the  mail  bags  when 
they  were  full,  or  when  the  machine  had  finished  with 
all  the  subscribers  in  one  town,  and  began  on  another. 
Nor  did  it  fail  to  serve  notice  of  each  such  change. 
Every  time  it  started  in  on  a  new  town  it  dipped  its 
thumb  in  some  red  ink,  and  made  a  dab  on  the  wrapper 
of  the  first  paper,  so  that  its  valet — poor  human  thing — 
would  know  enough  to  furnish  a  new  mail  bag.  I  noted 
the  name  to  which  one  red-dabbed  paper  was  addressed : 
E.  J.  Henry,  Bosco,  Wis.,  and  I  wondered  if  Mr.  Henry 
had  ever  wondered  what  made  that  florid  mark. 

It  was  near  midnight  then.  All  Bosco  was  asleep. 
Was  Mr.  Henry  dreaming?  And  however  wonderful 
his  dream,  could  it  surpass,  in  wonder,  this  gigantic 
organization  which,  for  a  tiny  sum,  tells  him,  daily, 
everything  that  happens  everywhere? 

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FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

Think  of  the  men  and  the  machines  that  work  for  Mr. 
E.  J.  Henry,  resident  of  Bosco,  in  the  Badger  State! 
Think  of  the  lumbermen  who  cut  the  logs ;  of  the  East 
ern  rivers  down  which  those  logs  float;  of  the  great 
pulp  mills  which  convert  them  into  paper.  Think  of  the 
railroad  trains  which  bring  that  paper  to  Chicago. 
Think  of  the  factories  which  build  presses  for  the  ulti 
mate  defacement  of  that  paper ;  and  the  other  factories 
which  make  the  ink.  Think  of  the  reporters  working 
everywhere !  Think  of  the  men  who  laid  the  wires  with 
which  the  world  is  webbed,  that  news  may  fly ;  and  the 
men  who  sit  at  the  ends  of  those  wires,  in  all  parts  of  the 
globe,  ticking  out  the  story  of  the  day  to  the  "Tribune" 
office  in  Chicago,  where  it  is  received  by  other  men,  who 
give  it  to  the  editors,  who  prepare  it  for  the  linotypers, 
who  set  it  for  the  stereotypers,  who  make  it  into  plates 
for  the  presses,  which  print  it  upon  the  paper,  which  is 
folded,  addressed,  and  dropped  into  a  mail  bag,  which 
is  rushed  off  in  a  motor  through  the  midnight  streets 
and  put  aboard  a  train,  which  carries  it  to  Bosco,  where 
it  is  taken  by  the  postman  and  delivered  at  the  residence 
of  Mr.  E.  J.  Henry,  who,  after  tearing  the  manila  wrap 
per,  opening  the  paper,  and  glancing  through  it,  re 
marks  :  "Pshaw !  There  's  no  news  to-day !"  and,  forth 
with,  rising  from  the  breakfast  table,  takes  up  an  old 
pair  of  shoes,  wraps  them  in  his  copy  of  the  Chicago 
"Tribune,"  tucks  them  under  his  arm  and  takes  them 
down  to  the  cobbler  to  be  half-soled. 
Sic  transit  gloria! 

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Up-stairs,  on  the  roof  of  the  'Tribune"  Building,  in 
a  kind  of  deck-house,  is  a  club,  made  up  of  members 
of  the  staff,  and  here,  through  the  courtesy  of  some  of 
the  editors,  my  companion  and  I  were  invited  to  have 
supper.  When  I  had  eaten  my  fill,  I  had  a  happy 
thought.  Here,  at  my  mercy,  were  a  lot  of  men  who 
were  engaged  in  the  business  of  sending  out  reporters 
to  molest  the  world  for  interviews.  I  decided  to  turn 
the  tables  and,  then  and  there,  interview  them — all  of 
them.  And  I  did  it.  And  they  took  it  very  well. 

I  had  heard  that  the  "Column" — that  sometimes,  if 
not  always,  humorous  newspaper  department,  which 
now  abounds  throughout  the  country,  threatening  to  be 
come  a  pestilence — originated  with  the  "Tribune."  I 
asked  about  that,  and  in  return  received,  from  several 
sources,  the  history  of  "Columns,"  as  recollected  by 
these  men. 

Probably  the  first  regular  humorous  column  in  the 
country — certainly  the  first  to  attract  any  considerable 
attention, — was  conducted  for  the  "Tribune"  by  Henry 
Ten  Eyck  White,  familiarly  known  as  "Butch"  White. 
It  started  about  1885,  under  the  heading,  "Lakeside 
Musings."  After  running  this  column  for  some  five 
years,  White  gave  it  up,  and  it  was  taken  over,  under 
the  same  heading,  by  Eugene  Field,  who  made  it  even 
better  known  than  it  had  been  before. 

Field  had  started  as  a  "columnist"  on  the  Denver 
"Tribune,"  where  he  had  run  his  "Tribune  Primer"; 
later  he  had  been  brought  to  Chicago  by  Melville  E. 

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I: 

3  n 
O 


FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

Stone  (now  general  manager  of  the  Associated  Press) 
and  Victor  F.  Lawson,  who  had  together  established 
the  Chicago  "Daily  News,"  of  which  Mr.  Lawson  is  the 
present  editor  and  publisher.  Field's  column  in  the 
"News"  was  known  as  "Sharps  and  Flats."  In  it  ap 
peared  his  free  translations  of  the  Odes  of  Horace,  and 
much  of  his  best  known  verse.  Also  he  printed  gossip 
of  the  stage  and  of  literary  matters — the  latter  being 
gathered  by  him  at  the  meetings  of  a  little  club,  "The 
Bibliophiles,"  composed  of  prominent  Chicagoans. 
This  club  used  to  meet  in  the  famous  old  McClurg  book 
store. 

In  1890  George  Ade  came  from  Indiana,  and  after 
having  been  a  reporter  on  the  Chicago  "Record"  for  one 
year,  started  his  famous  "Stories  of  the  Street  and 
Town,"  under  which  heading  much  of  his  best  early 
work  appeared.  This  department  was  illustrated  by 
John  T.  McCutcheon,  another  Indiana  boy.  At  about 
this  time,  Roswell  Field,  a  brother  of  Eugene,  was  con 
ducting  a  column  called  "Lights  and  Shadows"  in  the 
Chicago  "Evening  Post,"  in  which  paper  Finley  Peter 
Dunne  was  also  beginning  his  "Dooleys."  Dunne  was 
born  in  Chicago  and  was  a  reporter  on  several  Chicago 
papers  before  he  found  his  level.  He  got  the  idea  for 
"Dooley"  from  Jim  McGarry,  who  had  a  saloon  opposite 
the  "Tribune"  building,  and  employed  a  bartender 
named  Casey,  who  was  a  foil  for  him.  McGarry  was 
described  to  me  by  a  "Tribune"  man  who  knew  him, 
as  "a  crusty  old  cuss." 

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After  some  years  Dunne  left  the  "Post"  and  became 
editor  of  the  Chicago  "Journal/'  to  which  paper  came 
(from  Vermont  by  way  of  Duluth)  Bert  Leston  Taylor. 
Taylor  ran  a  department  on  the  "Journal"  which  was 
called  "A  Little  About  Everything,"  and  one  of  his 
"contribs"  was  a  young  insurance  man,  Franklin  P. 
Adams.  Later,  when  Taylor  left  the  "Journal"  to  take 
a  position  on  the  "Tribune,"  Adams  left  the  insurance 
business  and  went  at  "columning"  in  earnest,  replacing 
Taylor  on  the  "Journal."  Some  years  since  Adams 
migrated  to  the  metropolis,  where  he  now  conducts  a 
column  called  "The  Conning  Tower"  in  the  New  York 
"Tribune." 

Taylor,  in  the  meantime,  had  started  his  famous 
column  known  as  "A  Line-o'-Type  or  Two."  This  he 
ran  for  three  years,  after  which  he  moved  to  New  York 
and.  became  editor  of  "Puck."  Before  Taylor  left  the 
"Tribune,"  Wilbur  D.  Nesbit,  who  had  been  running  a 
column  which  he  signed  "Josh  Wink,"  in  the  Baltimore 
"American,"  came  to  Chicago  and  started  a  column 
called  "The  Top  o'  the  Morning,"  which,  for  a  time,  al 
ternated  with  Taylor's  "Line-o'-Type."  Later  Nesbit 
moved  over  to  the  "Post,"  where  he  conducted  a  depart 
ment  called  "The  Innocent  Bystander,"  leaving  the 
"Tribune,"  for  a  time,  without  a  "column." 

In  the  next  few  years  two  other  "columns"  started  in 
Chicago,  "Alternating  Currents,"  conducted  by  S.  E. 
Kiser,  for  the  "Record-Herald,"  and  "In  the  Wake  of 
the  News,"  which  was  started  in  the  "Tribune"  by  the 

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FIELD'S  AND  THE  "TRIBUNE" 

late  "Hughey"  Keough,  who  is  still  remembered  as  an 
exceptionally  gifted  man.  When  Keough  died,  Hugh  S. 
Fullerton  ran  the  column  for  a  time,  after  which  it  was 
taken  up  by  R.  W.  Lardner,  who,  I  believe,  continues  to 
conduct  it,  although  he  has  recently  written  baseball 
stories  which  have  been  published  in  "The  Saturday 
Evening  Post,"  and  have  attracted  much  attention. 
Riser  also  continues  his  column  in  the  "Record-Herald." 
Another  column,  which  started  a  year  or  so  ago  is 
"Breakfast  Food"  in  the  Chicago  "Examiner,"  con 
ducted  by  George  Phair,  formerly  of  Milwaukee. 

The  Chicago  "Tribune"  now  has  two  "columns,"  for, 
five  years  since,  it  recaptured  Bert  Leston  Taylor,  and 
brought  him  back  to  revive  his  "Line-o'-Type."  He  has 
been  there  ever  since,  and,  so  far  as  I  know  "columns," 
his  is  the  best  in  the  United  States.  It  has  been  widely 
imitated,  as  has  also  been  the  work  of  the  "Tribune's" 
famous  cartoonist,  John  T.  McCutcheon.  But  some 
thing  that  a  "Tribune"  man  said  to  me  of  McCutcheon, 
is  no  less  true,  I  think,  of  Taylor :  "They  can  imitate 
his  style,  but  they  cannot  imitate  his  mind." 


163 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  STOCKYARDS 

IT  is  rather  widely  known,  I  think,  that  Chicago  built 
the  first  steel-frame  skyscraper — the  Tacoma  Build 
ing — but  I  do  not  believe  that  the  world  knows  that 
Kohlsaat's  in  Chicago  was  the  first  quick-lunch  place  of 
its  kind,  or  that  the  first  "free  lunch"  in  the  country  was 
established,  many  years  since,  in  the  basement  saloon 
at  the  corner  of  State  and  Madison  Streets.  Consider 
ing  the  skyscrapers  and  quick  lunches  and  free  lunches 
that  there  are  to-day,  it  is  hard  to  realize  that  there  ever 
was  a  first  one  anywhere.  But  the  origin  of  things 
which  have  become  national  institutions,  as  these  things 
have,  seems  to  me  to  be  worth  recording  here.  It  may 
be  added  that  the  loyal  Chicagoan  who  told  of  these 
things  seemed  to  be  prouder  of  the  "free  lunch"  and  the 
quick  lunch  than  of  the  skyscraper. 

Of  two  things  I  mentioned  to  him  he  was  not  proud  at 
all.  One  was  the  famous  pair  of  First  Ward  aldermen 
who  have  attained  a  national  fame  under  their  nick 
names,  "Hinky  Dink"  and  "Bathhouse  John."  The 
other  was  the  stockyards. 

"Why  is  it,"  he  asked  in  a  bored  and  irritated  tone, 
"that  every  one  who  comes  out  here  has  to  go  to  the 
stockyards?" 

164 


THE  STOCKYARDS 

"Are  you  aware,"  I  returned,  "that  half  the  bank 
clearings  of  Chicago  are  traceable  to  the  stockyards?" 

He  answered  with  a  noncommittal  grunt. 

His  was  not  the  attitude  of  the  Detroit  man  who 
wants  you  to  know  that  Detroit  does  something  more 
than  make  automobiles,  or  of  the  Grand  Rapids  man 
who  says :  "We  make  lots  of  things  here  besides  furni 
ture."  He  was  really  ashamed  of  the  stockyards,  as 
a  man  may,  perhaps,  be  ashamed  of  the  fact  that  his 
father  made  his  money  in  some  business  with  a  smell 
to  it.  And  because  he  felt  so  deeply  on  the  subject, 
I  had  the  half  idea  of  not  touching  on  the  stockyards 
in  this  chapter. 

However  the  news  that  my  companion  and  myself 
were  there  to  "do"  Chicago  was  printed  in  the  papers, 
and  presently  the  stockyards  began  to  call  us  up.  It 
did  n't  even  ask  if  we  were  coming.  It  just  asked  when. 
And  as  I  hesitated,  it  settled  the  whole  matter  then  and 
there  by  saying  it  would  call  for  us  in  its  motor  car,  at 
once. 

I  may  say  at  the  outset  that,  to  quote  the  phrase  of 
Mr.  Freer  of  Detroit,  the  stockyards  "has  no  esthetic 
value."  It  is  a  place  of  mud,  and  railroad  tracks,  and 
cattle  cars,  and  cattle  pens,  and  overhead  runways,  and 
great  ugly  brick  buildings,  and  men  on  ponies,  and 
raucous  grunts,  and  squeals,  and  smells — a  place  which 
causes  the  heart  to  sink  with  a  sickening  heaviness. 

Our  first  call  was  at  the  Welfare  Building,  where  we 
were  shown  some  of  the  things  which  are  being  done  to 

165 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

benefit  employees  of  the  packing  houses.  It  was  noon 
time.  The  enormous  lunch  room  was  well  occupied. 
A  girl  was  playing  ragtime  at  a  piano  on  a  platform. 
The  room  was  clean  and  airy.  The  women  wore  aprons 
and  white  caps.  A  good  lunch  cost  six  cents.  There 
were  iron  lockers  in  the  locker  room — lockers  such  as 
one  sees  in  an  athletic  club.  There  were  marble  shower 
baths  for  the  men  and  for  the  women.  There  were  two 
manicures  who  did  nothing  but  see  to  the  hands  of  the 
women  working  in  the  plant.  There  were  notices  of 
classes  in  housekeeping,  cooking,  washing,  house  fur 
nishing,  the  preparation  of  food  for  the  sick — signs 
printed  in  English,  Russian,  Slovak,  Polish,  Bohemian, 
Hungarian,  Lithuanian,  German,  Norwegian,  Swedish, 
Croatian,  Italian,  and  Greek.  Obviously,  the  company 
was  doing  things  to  help  these  people.  Obviously  it  was 
proud  of  what  it  was  doing.  Obviously  I  should  have 
rejoiced,  saying  to  myself:  "See  how  these  poor,  igno 
rant  foreigners  who  come  over  here  to  our  beautiful  and 
somewhat  free  country  are  being  elevated!"  But  all 
I  could  think  of  was :  "What  a  horrible  place  the  stock 
yards  is!  How  I  loathe  it  here!" 

On  the  North  Side  of  Chicago  there  is  an  old  and 
exclusive  club,  dating  from  before  the  days  of  motor 
cars,  which  is  known  as  the  Saddle  and  Cycle  Club. 
The  lunch  club  for  the  various  packing-house  officials, 
at  the  stockyards,  has  a  name  bearing  perhaps  some 
satirical  relation  to  that  of  the  other  club.  It  is  called 
the  Saddle  and  Sirloin  Club,  and  in  that  club  I  ate  a 

166 


THE  STOCKYARDS 

piece  of  sirloin  the  memory  of  which  will  always  remain 
with  me  as  something  sacred. 

After  lunching  and  visiting  the  offices  of  a  packing 
company  where,  we  were  told,  an  average  daily  business 
of  $1,300,000  is  done — and  the  place  looks  it — we  vis 
ited  the  Stockyards  Inn,  which  is  really  an  astonishing 
establishment.  The  astonishing  quality  about  it  is  that 
it  is  a  thing  of  beauty  which  has  grown  up  in  a  place  as 
far  removed  from  beauty  as  any  that  I  ever  looked 
upon  outside  a  mining  camp.  A  charming,  low,  half- 
timbered  building,  the  Inn  is  like  something  at  Stratf  ord- 
on-Avon ;  and  by  some  strange  freak  of  chance  the  man 
who  runs  it  has  a  taste  for  the  antique  in  furniture  and 
chinaware.  Inside  it  is  almost  like  a  fine  old  country 
house — pleasant  cretonnes,  grate  fires,  old  Chippendale 
chairs,  mahogany  tables,  grandfather's  clocks,  pewter, 
and  luster  ware.  All  this  for  cattlemen  who  bring  their 
flocks  and  herds  into  the  yards!  The  only  thing  to 
spoil  it  is  the  all-pervasive  smell  of  animals. 

From  there  we  went  to  the  place  of  death. 

Through  a  small  door  the  fated  pigs  enter  the  final 
pen  fifteen  or  t\venty  at  a  time.  They  are  nervous, 
perhaps  because  of  the  smell  coming  from  within,  per 
haps  because  of  the  sounds.  A  man  in  the  pen  loops 
a  chain  around  the  hind  foot  of  each  successive  pig, 
and  then  slips  the  iron  ring  at  the  other  end  of  the 
chain  over  a  hook  at  the  outer  margin  of  a  revolving 
drum,  perhaps  ten  feet  in  diameter.  As  the  drum  re 
volves  the  hook  rises,  slowly,  drawing  the  pig  backward 

167 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

by  the  leg,  and  finally  lifting  it  bodily,  head  downward. 
When  the  hook  reaches  the  top  of  its  orbit  it  transfers 
the  animal  to  a  trolley,  upon  which  it  slides  in  due 
course  to  the  waiting  butcher,  who  dispatches  it  with  a 
knife  thrust  in  the  neck,  and  turns  to  receive  the  next 

pig- 

The  manners  of  the  pigs  on  their  way  to  execution 

held  me  with  a  horrid  fascination.  Pigs  look  so 
much  alike  that  we  assume  them  to  be  minus  indi 
viduality.  That  is  not  so.  The  French  Revolution — 
of  which  the  stockyards  reminded  Dr.  George  Brandes, 
the  literary  critic,  who  recently  visited  this  country — 
scarcely  could  have  brought  out  in  its  victims  a  wider 
range  of  characteristics  than  these  pigs  show.  I  have 
often  noticed,  of  course,  that  some  people  are  like  pigs, 
but  I  had  never  before  suspected  that  all  pigs  are  so  very 
much  like  people.  Some  of  them  come  in  yelling  with 
fright.  Others  are  silent.  They  shift  about  nervously, 
and  sniff,  as  though  scenting  death.  "It 's  the  steam 
they  smell/'  said  a  man  in  overalls  beside  me.  Well, 
perhaps  it  is.  But  I  could  smell  death  there,  and  I  still 
think  the  pigs  can  smell  it,  too.  Some  of  the  pigs  lean 
against  each  other  for  companionship  in  their  distress. 
Others  merely  wait  with  bowed  heads,  giving  a  curious 
effect  of  porcine  resignation.  When  they  feel  the  tug 
of  the  chain,  and  are  dragged  backward,  some  of  them 
set  up  a  new  and  frightful  squealing;  others  go  in  si 
lence,  and  with  a  sort  of  dignity,  like  martyrs  dying  for 
a  cause. 

168 


THE  STOCKYARDS 

As  I  stood  there,  studying  the  temperament  of  pigs, 
I  saw  the  butcher  looking  up  at  me  at  he  wiped  his  long, 
thin  blade.  He  was  a  rawboned  Slav  with  a  pale  face, 
high  cheek  bones,  and  large  brown  eyes,  holding  within 
their  somber  depths  an  expression  of  thoughtful, 
dreamy  abstraction.  I  have  never  seen  such  eyes. 
Without  prejudice  or  pity  they  seemed  to  look  alike  on 
man  and  pig.  Being  upon  the  platform  above  him, 
right  side  up,  and  free  to  go  when  I  should  please,  I  felt 
safe  for  the  moment.  But  suppose  I  were  not  so — 
suppose  I  were  to  come  along  to  him,  hanging  by  one 
leg  from  the  trolley — what  would  he  do  then?  Would 
he  stop  to  ask  why  they  had  sent  another  sort  of  animal, 
I  wondered?  Or  would  he  do  his  work  impartially? 

I  should  not  wish  to  take  the  chance. 

The  progress  of  the  pig  is  swift — if  the  transition 
from  pig  to  pork  may  be  termed  "progress."  The  car 
cass  travels  presently  through  boiling  water,  and 
emerges  pink  and  clean.  And  as  it  goes  along  upon  its 
trolley,  it  passes  one  man  after  another,  each  with  an 
active  knife,  until,  thirty  minutes  later,  when  it  has  un 
dergone  the  government  inspection,  it  is  headless  and 
in  halves — mere  meat,  which  looks  as  though  it  never 
could  have  been  alive. 

From  the  slaughter-house  we  passed  through  the 
smoke-house,  where  ham  and  bacon  were  smoking  over 
hardwood  fires  in  rows  of  ovens  big  as  blocks  of  houses. 
Then  through  the  pickling  room  with  its  enormous  hogs 
heads,  giving  the  appearance  of  a  monkish  wine  cellar. 

169 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Then  through  the  curing  room  with  its  countless  piles 
of  dry  salt  pork,  neatly  arranged  like  giant  bricks. 

The  enthusiastic  gentleman  who  escorted  us  kept 
pointing  out  the  beauties  of  the  way  this  work  was 
done:  the  cleanliness,  the  system  by  which  the  rooms 
are  washed  with  steam,  the  gigantic  scale  of  all  the 
operations.  I  heard,  I  noticed,  I  agreed.  But  all  the 
time  my  mind  was  full  of  thoughts  of  dying  pigs.  In 
deed,  I  had  forgotten  for  the  moment  that  other  animals 
are  also  killed  to  feed  carnivorous  man.  However,  I 
was  reminded  of  that,  presently,  when  we  came  upon 
another  building,  consecrated  to  the  conversion  of  life 
into  veal  and  beef. 

The  steers  meet  death  in  little  pens.  It  descends 
upon  them  unexpectedly  from  above,  dealt  out  by  a  man 
with  a  sledge,  who  cracks  them  between  the  horns  with 
a  sound  like  that  of  a  woodman's  ax  upon  a  tree.  The 
creatures  quiver  and  quickly  crumple. 

It  is  swift.  In  half  a  minute  the  false  bottom  of  the 
pen  turns  up  and  rolls  them  out  upon  the  floor,  inert  as 
bags  of  meal.  Only  after  death  do  these  cattle  find 
their  way  to  an  elevated  trolley  line,  like  that  used  for 
the  pigs.  And,  as  with  the  pigs,  they  move  along 
speedily;  shortly  they  are  to  be  seen  in  the  beef  cooler, 
where  they  hang  in  tremendous  rows,  forming  strange 
vistas — a  forest  of  dead  meat. 

The  scene  where  calves  were  being  killed  according  to 
the  Jewish  law,  for  kosher  meat,  presented  the  most 
sanguinary  spectacle  with  which  my  eyes  have  ever 

170 


THE  STOCKYARDS 

burned.  Two  rabbis,  old  bearded  men,  performed  the 
rites  with  long,  slim,  shiny  blades.  Literally  they 
waded  in  a  lake  of  gore.  Even  the  walls  were  covered 
with  it.  Looking  down  upon  them  from  above,  we  saw 
them  silhouetted  on  a  sheet  of  pigment  utterly  beyond 
comparison — for,  without  exaggeration,  fire  would  look 
pale  and  cold  beside  the  shrieking  crimson  of  that  blood 
— glistening,  wet,  and  warm  in  the  electric  light. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  conceal  the  fact  that  I  was  glad 
to  leave  the  stockyards. 

When,  a  short  time  later,  the  motor  car  was  bearing 
us  smoothly  down  the  sunlit  boulevard,  the  Advertising 
Gentleman  who  had  conducted  us  through  all  the  car 
nage  put  an  abrupt  question  to  me. 

"Do  you  want  to  be  original?"  he  demanded. 

"I  suppose  all  writers  hope  to  be/'  I  answered. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  tapping  me  emphatically  upon  the 
knee,  "I  '11  tell  you  how  to  do  it.  When  you  write  about 
the  Yards,  don't  mention  the  killing.  Everybody  's  done 
that.  There  's  nothing  more  to  say.  What  you  want 
to  do  is  to  dwell  on  the  other  side.  That 's  the  way  to 
be  original." 

"The  other  side?"  I  murmured  feebly. 

"Sure!"  he  cried.  "Look  at  this."  As  he  spoke,  he 
produced  from  a  pocket  some  proofs  of  pen-and-ink 
drawings — pictures  of  sweet-faced  girls,  encased  in 
spotless  aprons,  wearing  upon  their  heads  alluring  caps, 
and  upon  their  lips  the  smiles  of  angels,  while,  with 

171 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

their  dainty  rose-tipped  fingers,  they  packed  the  lus 
cious  by-products  of  cattle-killing  into  tins — tins  which 
shone  as  only  the  pen  of  the  "commercial  artist"  can 
make  tins  shine. 

"There 's  your  story !"  he  exclaimed.  "The  poetic 
side  of  packing!  Don't  write  about  the  slaughter 
houses.  Dwell  on  daintiness — pretty  girls  in  white 
caps — everything  shining  and  clean!  Don't  you  see 
that 's  the  way  to  make  your  story  original?" 

Of  course  I  saw  it  at  once.  Original?  Why, 
original  is  no  name  for  it!  I  could  never  have  con 
ceived  such  originality !  It  is  n't  in  me !  I  should  no 
more  have  thought  of  writing  only  of  pretty  girls  and 
pretty  cans,  after  witnessing  those  bloody  scenes,  than 
of  describing  the  battle  at  Liege  in  terms  of  polish  used 
on  soldiers'  buttons. 

But  original  as  the  idea  is,  you  perceive  I  have  not 
used  it.  I  could  not  bear  to.  He  thought  of  it  first. 
It  belonged  to  him.  If  I  used  it,  the  originality  would 
not  be  mine,  but  his.  So  I  have  deliberately  written 
the  story  in  my  own  hackneyed  way. 


172 


CHAPTER  XIV 
THE  HONORABLE  HINKY  DINK 

HAS  it  ever  struck  you  that  our  mental  attitude 
toward  famous  men  varies  in  this  respect :  that 
while  we  think  of  some  of  them  as  human  be 
ings  with  whom  we  might  conceivably  shake  hands  and 
have  a  chat,  we  think  of  others  as  legendary  creatures, 
strange  and  remote — beings  hardly  to  be  looked  upon 
by  human  eyes? 

Some  years  since,  in  the  courtyard  of  a  hotel  in 
Paris,  I  met  a  friend  of  mine.  He  was  hurrying  in  the 
direction  of  the  bar. 

"Come  on,"  he  beckoned.  "There  are  some  people 
here  you  '11  want  to  meet." 

I  followed  him  in  and  to  a  table  at  which  two  men 
were  seated.  One  proved  to  be  Alfred  Sutro;  the  other 
Maurice  Maeterlinck. 

To  meet  Mr.  Sutro  was  delightful,  but  it  was  conceiv 
able.  Not  so  Maeterlinck.  To  shake  hands  with  him, 
to  sit  at  the  same  table,  to  see  that  he  wore  a  black  coat,  a 
stiff  collar  (it  was  too  large  for  him),  a  black  string  tie, 
a  square-crowned  derby  hat;  to  see  him  seated  in  a  bar 
sipping  beer  like  any  man — that  was  not  conceivable. 

I  sat  there  speechless,  trying  to  convince  myself  of 
what  I  saw. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"That  man  over  there  is  actually  Maeterlinck!"  I  kept 
assuring  myself.  "I  am  looking  at  Maeterlinck !  Now 
he  nods  the  head  in  which  'The  Bluebird'  was  conceived. 
Now  he  lifts  his  beer  glass  in  the  hand  which  indited 
'Monna  Vanna!'" 

Nor  was  my  amazement  due  entirely  to  the  surprise 
of  meeting  a  much-admired  man.  It  was  due,  most  of 
all,  to  a  feeling  which  I  must  have  had — although  I  was 
never  before  conscious  of  it — a  feeling  that  no  such 
man  as  Maeterlinck  existed  in  reality;  that  he  was 
a  purely  legendary  being;  a  figure  in  white  robes 
and  sandals,  harping  and  singing  in  some  Elysian 
temple. 

I  experienced  a  somewhat  similar  emotion  in  Chicago 
on  being  introduced  to  Hinky  Dink.  In  saying  that,  I 
do  not  mean  to  be  irreverent.  I  only  mean  that  I  had 
always  thought  of  Hinky  Dink  as  a  fictitious  personage. 
He  and  his  colleague,  Bathhouse  John,  have  figured  in 
my  mind  as  a  pair  of  absurd,  imaginary  figures,  such  as 
might  have  been  invented  by  some  whimsical  son  of  a 
comic  supplement  like  Winsor  McCay. 

Now,  as  I  soon  discovered,  the  Hinky  Dink  of  the 
newspapers  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  a  large  extent  fic 
titious.  He  is  a  legend,  built  up  out  of  countless  comic 
stories  and  newspaper  cartoons.  The  real  Hinky  Dink 
— otherwise  Alderman  Michael  Kenna — is  a  very  dif 
ferent  person,  for  whatever  may  be  said  against  him 
— and  much  is — he  is  a  very  real  human  being. 

174 


THE  HONORABLE  HINKY  DINK 

I  clip  this  brief  summary  of  his  life  from  the  Chicago 
"Record-Herald." 

Born  on  the  West  Side,  August  18,   1858. 

Started  life  as  a  newsboy. 
"Crowned"  as  Alderman  of  the  First  Ward  in  1897. 

Reflected  biennially  ever  since. 
Owner  in  fief  of  various  privileges  in  the  First  Ward. 

•Lord  of  the  Workingmen's  Exchange. 
Overlord  of  floaters,  voters,  and  other  liege  subjects. 

The  Workingmen's  Exchange,  referred  to  above,  is 
one  of  two  saloons  operated  by  the  Alderman,  on  South 
Clark  Street,  and  it  is  a  show  place  for  those  who  wish 
to  look  upon  the  darker  side  of  things.  It  is  a  very 
large  saloon,  having  one  of  the  longest  bars  I  ever  saw ; 
also  one  of  the  busiest.  Hardly  anything  but  beer  is 
served  there;  beer  in  schooners  little  smaller  than  a 
man's  head.  These  are  known  locally  as  "babies,"  and, 
by  a  curious  custom,  the  man  who  removes  his  fingers 
from  his  glass  forfeits  it  to  any  one  who  takes  it  up. 
Nor  are  takers  lacking. 

"I  '11  tell  you  a  funny  thing  about  this  place,"  said  my 
friend  the  veteran  police  reporter,  who  was  somewhat 
apologetically  doing  the  honors.  (Police  reporters  are 
always  apologetic  when  they  show  you  over  a  town  that 
has  been  "cleaned  up.") 

"What?"  I  asked. 

"No  one  has  ever  been  killed  in  here,"  he  said. 

I  had  to  admit  that  it  was  a  funny  thing.  After 
looking  at  the  faces  lined  up  at  the  bar  I  should  not 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

have  imagined  it  possible.  Presently  we  crossed  the 
street  to  the  Alderman's  other  saloon;  a  very  different 
sort  of  place,  shining  with  mirrors,  mahogany,  and 
brass,  and  frequented  by  a  better  class  of  men.  Here 
we  met  Hinky  Dink. 

He  is  a  slight  man,  so  short  of  stature  that  when  he 
leans  a  little,  resting  his  elbow  on  the  bar,  his  arm  runs 
out  horizontally  from  the  shoulder.  He  wore  an  ex 
tremely  neat  brown  suit  (there  was  even  a  white  col 
larette  inside  the  vest!)  a  round  black  felt  hat,  and  a 
heavy  watch  chain,  from  which  hung  a  large  circular 
charm  with  a  star  and  crescent  set  in  diamonds. 
Though  it  was  late  at  night,  he  looked  as  if  he  had  just 
been  washed  and  brushed. 

His  face  is  exceedingly  interesting.  His  lips  are 
thin;  his  nose  is  sharp,  coming  to  a  rather  pronounced 
point,  and  his  eyes  are  remarkable  for  what  they  see 
and  what  they  do  not  tell.  They  are  poker  eyes — gray- 
blue,  cold,  penetrating,  unrevealing.  My  companion 
and  I  felt  that  while  we  were  "getting"  Hinky  Dink,  he 
was  not  failing  to  "get"  us. 

Far  from  being  tough  or  vicious  in  his  manner  or  con 
versation,  the  little  Alderman  is  very  quiet.  There  is, 
indeed,  a  kind  of  gentleness  about  him.  His  English 
is,  I  should  say,  quite  as  good  as  that  of  the  average 
man,  while  his  thinking  is  much  above  the  average  as 
to  quickness  and  clearness.  As  between  himself  and 
Bathhouse  John,  the  other  First  Ward  fixture  on  the 
Board  of  Aldermen,  it  is  generally  conceded  that  Hinky 

176 


Two  rabbis,  old  bearded  men,  performed  the  rites  with  long, 
slim,  shiny  blades 


THE  HONORABLE  HINKY  DINK 

Dink  is  the  more  able  and  intelligent.  On  this  point, 
however,  I  was  unable  to  draw  my  own  conclusions. 
The  Bathhouse  was  ill  when  I  was  in  Chicago. 

In  the  ordinary  conversation  of  the  Honorable  Hinky 
Dink  there  is  no  trace  of  brogue,  but  a  faint  touch  of 
brogue  manifests  itself  when  he  speaks  with  unwonted 
vehemence — as,  for  example,  when  he  told  us  about 
the  injustices  which  he  alleged  were  perpetrated  up 
on  the  poor  voters  who  live  in  lodging  houses  in  his 
ward. 

The  little  Alderman  is  famous  for  his  reticence. 

"Small  wonder!"  said  my  friend  the  police  reporter. 
"Look  at  what  the  papers  have  handed  him !  I  '11  tell 
you  what  happens:  some  city  editor  sends  a  kid  re 
porter  to  get  a  story  about  Hinky  Dink.  The  kid  comes 
and  sees  Kenna,  and  does  n't  get  anything  out  of  him 
but  monosyllables.  He  goes  back  to  the  office  without 
any  story,  but  that  does  n't  make  any  difference.  Hinky 
Dink  is  fair  game.  The  kid  sits  down  to  his  typewriter 
and  fakes  a  story,  making  out  that  the  Alderman  did  n't 
only  talk,  but  that  he  talked  a  kind  of  tough-guy  dialect 
— 'deze-here  tings' — 'doze  dere  tings' — all  that  kind  of 
stuff.  Can  you  blame  the  little  fellow  for  not  talking?" 

I  could  not. 

But  he  talked  to  us,  and  freely.  The  police  reporter 
told  him  we  were  "right."  That  was  enough. 

As  the  "red-light  district"  of  Chicago  used  to  be 
largely  in  the  First  Ward  before  it  was  broken  up,  I 
asked  the  Alderman  for  his  views  on  the  segregation  of 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

vice  versus  the  other  thing,  whatever  it  may  be.  (Is 
it  dissemination?) 

"I  '11  tell  you  what  I  think  about  it,"  he  replied,  "but 
you  can't  print  it." 

"Why  not?"  I  asked,  disappointed. 

"Well,"  he  returned,  "I  believe  in  a  segregated  dis 
trict,  but  if  I  'm  quoted  as  saying  so,  why  the  woman  re 
formers  and  everybody  on  the  other  side  will  take  it  up 
and  say  I  'm  for  it  just  because  I  want  vice  back  in  the 
First  Ward  again.  I  don't.  It  does  n't  make  any  dif 
ference  to  me  where  you  have  it.  Put  it  out  by  the 
Drainage  Canal  or  anywheres  you  like.  But  I  believe 
you  can't  stamp  vice  out ;  not  the  way  people  are  made  to 
day.  They  never  have  been  able  to  stamp  it  out  in  all 
these  thousands  of  years.  And,  as  long  as  they  can't,  it 
looks  to  me  like  it  was  better  to  get  it  together  all  in  one 
bunch  than  to  scatter  it  all  over  town. 

"Now  I  know  there  's  a  whole  lot  of  good  people  that 
think  segregation  is  a  bad  thing.  Well,  it  is  a  bad 
thing.  Vice  is  a  bad  thing.  But  there  it  is,  all  the 
same.  A  lot  of  these  good  people  don't  understand 
conditions.  They  don't  understand  what  lots  of  other 
men  and  women  are  really  like.  You  got  to  take  people 
as  they  are  and  do  what  you  can. 

"One  thing  that  shocks  a  lot  of  these  high-minded 
folks  that  live  in  comfortable  homes  and  never  have 
any  trouble  except  when  they  have  to  get  a  new  cook, 
is  the  idea  of  commercialized  vice  that  goes  with  segre 
gation.  Of  course  it  shocks  them.  But  show  me  some 

178 


THE  HONORABLE  HINKY  DINK 

way  to  stop  it.     Napoleon  believed  in  segregation  and 
regulation,  and  a  lot  of  other  wise  people  have,  too. 

"Here  's  the  way  I  think  they  ought  to  handle  it : 
they  ought  to  have  a  district  regulated  by  the  Police 
Department  and  the  Health  Department.  Then  there 
ought  to  be  restrictions.  No  bright  lights  for  one 
thing.  No  music.  No  booze.  Cut  out  those  things 
and  you  kill  the  place  for  sightseers.  Then  there  ought 
to  be  a  law  that  no  woman  can  be  an  inmate  without 
going  and  registering  with  the  police,  having  her  record 
looked  up,  and  saying  she  wants  to  enter  the  house. 
That  would  prevent  any  possibility  of  white  slavery. 
Personally,  I  think  there  's  a  lot  of  bunk  about  this  white- 
slave  talk.  But  this  plan  would  fix  it  so  a  girl  could  n't 
be  kept  in  a  house  against  her  will.  Any  keeper  of  a 
house  who  let  in  a  girl  that  was  n't  registered  would  be 
put  out  of  business  for  good  and  all.  Men  ought  not  to 
be  allowed  to  have  any  interest,  directly  or  indirectly, 
in  the  management  of  these  places. 

"Now,  of  course,  there  's  objections  to  any  way  at  all 
of  handling  this  question.  The  minute  you  say  'cut  out 
the  booze'  that  opens  a  way  to  police  graft.  But  is  that 
any  worse  than  the  chance  for  graft  when  the  women 
are  just  chased  around  from  place  to  place  by  the  police  ? 
Segregation  gives  them  some  rights,  anyhow. 

"Some  people  say  'segregation  does  n't  segregate/ 
Well,  that 's  true,  too.  But  segregation  keeps  the 
worst  of  it  from  being  scattered  all  over  town,  does  n't 
it?  When  you  scatter  these  women  you  have  them  liv- 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

ing  in  buildings  alongside  of  respectable  families,  or, 
worse  yet,  you  run  them  onto  the  streets.  That 's 
persecution,  and  they  're  bad  enough  off  without 
that. 

"Say,  do  you  think  Chicago  is  really  any  more  moral 
this  minute  because  the  old  red-light  district  is  shut 
down?  A  few  of  the  resort  keepers  left  town,  and 
maybe  a  hundred  inmates,  but  most  of  them  stuck. 
They  're  around  in  the  residence  districts  now,  running 
what  they  call  'buffet  flats.' 

Listening  to  the  little  Alderman  I  was  convinced  of 
two  things.  First,  I  felt  sure  that,  without  thought  of 
self-interest,  he  was  telling  me  what  he  really  believed. 
Second,  as  he  is  undeniably  a  man  of  broad  experience 
among  unfortunates  of  various  kinds,  his  views  are  in 
teresting. 

"I  wish  you  'd  let  me  print  what  you  have  said,"  I 
urged  as  we  were  leaving  his  saloon. 

He  shook  his  head. 

"I  '11  tell  you  what  I  '11  do,"  I  persisted.  "I  '11  write 
it  out.  Perhaps  I  can  put  it  in  such  a  way  that  people 
will  see  that  you  were  playing  square.  Then  I  '11  send 
it  to  you,  and,  if  it  does  n't  misrepresent  you,  perhaps 
you  '11  let  me  print  it  after  all." 

"All  right,"  he  agreed  as  we  shook  hands. 


180 


CHAPTER  XV 
AN  OLYMPIAN  PLAN 

IN  city  planning,  as  in  other  things,   Chicago  has 
thought  and  plotted  on  an  Olympian  scale,  and  it  is 
characteristic  of  Chicago  that  her  plan  for  her  own 
beautification  should  be  so  much  greater  than  the  plan 
of  any  other  city  in  the  country,  as  to  make  compari 
sons  unkind.     For  that  reason  I  have  eliminated  Chicago 
from  consideration,  when  discussing  the  various  group 
plans,  park  and  boulevard  systems,  and  "civic  centers," 
upon  which  other  American  cities  are  at  work. 

The  Chicago  plan  is,  indeed,  too  immense  a  thing  to  be 
properly  dealt  with  here.  It  is  comparable  with  noth 
ing  less  than  the  Haussman  plan  for  Paris,  and  it  is 
being  carried  forward,  through  the  years,  with  the  same 
foresight,  the  same  patience  and  the  same  indomitable 
aspiration.  Indeed,  I  think  greater  patience  has  been 
required  in  Chicago,  for  the  French  people  were  in  sym 
pathy  with  beauty  at  a  time  when  the  broad  meaning  of 
the  word  was  actually  not  understood  in  this  country. 
Here  it  has  been  necessary  to  educate  the  masses,  to 
cultivate  their  city  pride,  and  to  direct  that  pride  into 
creative  channels.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  the 
minds  of  American  city-dwellers  (and  half  our  race  in- 

181 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

habits  cities)  have  had  to  be  re-made,  in  order  to 
prepare  them  to  receive  such  plans  as  the  Chicago 
plan. 

The  World's  Columbian  Exposition,  at  Chicago,  ex 
erted  a  greater  influence  upon  the  United  States  than 
any  other  fair  has  ever  exerted  upon  a  country.  It  came 
at  a  critical  moment  in  our  esthetic  history — a  moment 
when  the  sense  of  beauty  of  form  and  color,  which  had 
hitherto  been  dormant  in  Americans,  was  ready  to  be 
aroused. 

Fortunately  for  us,  the  Chicago  Fair  was  worthy  of 
the  opportunity;  and  that  it  was  worthy  of  the  oppor 
tunity  was  due  to  the  late  Daniel  Hudson  Burnham,  the 
distinguished  architect,  who  was  director  of  works  for 
the  Exposition.  In  the  perspective  of  the  twenty-one 
years  which  have  passed  since  the  Chicago  Fair,  the  fig 
ure  of  Mr.  Burnham,  and  the  importance  of  the  work 
done  by  him,  grows  larger.  When  the  history  of  the 
American  Renaissance  comes  to  be  written,  Daniel  H. 
Burnham  and  the  men  by  whom  he  was  surrounded  at 
the  time  the  Chicago  Fair  was  being  made,  will  be  listed 
among  the  founders  of  the  movement. 

The  Fair  awoke  the  American  sense  of  beauty.  And 
before  its  course  was  run,  a  group  of  Chicago  busi 
ness  men,  some  of  whom  were  directors  of  the  exposi 
tion,  determined  to  have  a  plan  for  the  entire  city  which 
should  so  far  as  possible  reflect  the  lessons  of  the  Fair 
in  the  arrangement  of  streets,  parks  and  plazas,  and  the 
grouping  of  buildings. 

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AN  OLYMPIAN  PLAN 

After  the  Fair,  the  Chicago  Commercial  Club  commis 
sioned  Mr.  Burnham  to  proceed  to  re-plan  the  city. 
Eight  years  were  consumed  in  this  work.  The  best 
architects  available  were  called  in  consultation.  After 
having  spent  more  than  $200,000,  the  Commercial  Club 
presented  the  plan  to  the  city,  together  with  an  elaborate 
report. 

To  carry  out  the  plan,  the  Chicago  City  Council,  in 
1909,  created  a  Plan  Commission,  composed  of  more 
than  300  men,  representing  every  element  of  citizen 
ship  under  the  permanent  chairmanship  of  Mr.  Charles 
H.  Wacker,  who  had  previously  been  most  active  in  the 
work.  Under  Mr.  Wacker's  direction,  and  with  the 
aid  of  continued  subscriptions  from  the  Commercial 
Club,  the  work  of  the  Commission  has  gone  on  steadily, 
and  vast  improvements  have  already  been  made. 

The  Plan  itself  has  to  do  entirely  with  the  physical 
rearrangement  of  the  city.  It  is  designed  to  relieve 
congestion,  facilitate  traffic,  and  safeguard  health. 

Instead  of  routing  out  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad 
which  disfigures  the  lake  front  of  the  whole  South  Side, 
the  plan  provides  for  the  making  of  a  parkway  half  a 
mile  wide  and  five  miles  long,  beyond  the  tracks,  where 
the  lake  now  is.  This  parkway  will  extend  from  Grant 
Park,  at  the  center  of  the  city,  all  the  way  to  Jackson 
Park,  where  the  World's  Fair  grounds  were.  Arrange 
ments  have  also  been  made  for  immense  forest  areas,  to 
encircle  the  city  outside  its  limits,  occupying  somewhat 
the  relation  to  it  that  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  and  the  Bois 

183 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

de  Vincennes  do  to  Paris.  New  parks  are  also  to  be 
created  within  the  city. 

It  is  impossible  to  go  into  further  details  here  as  to 
these  parks,  but  it  should  be  said  that,  when  the  lake 
front  parkway  system,  above  mentioned,  is  completed, 
practically  the  whole  front  of  Chicago  along  Lake 
Michigan  will  be  occupied  by  parks  and  lagoons,  and  that 
Chicago  expects — and  not  without  reason — to  have  the 
finest  waterfront  of  any  city  in  the  world. 

Michigan  Avenue,  the  city's  superb  central  street 
which  already  bears  very  heavy  traffic,  now  has  a  width 
of  130  feet  at  the  heart  of  the  city,  excepting  to  the 
north,  near  the  river,  where  it  becomes  a  narrow,  squalid 
street,  for  all  that  it  is  the  principal  highway  between 
the  North  and  South  Sides.  This  portion  of  the  street 
is  not  only  to  be  widened,  but  will  be  made  into  a  two- 
level  thoroughfare  (the  lower  level  for  heavy  vehicles 
and  the  upper  for  light)  crossing  the  river  on  a  double- 
deck  bridge. 

It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  the  business  and  shopping 
district  of  Chicago  is  at  present  strangled  by  the  ele 
vated  railroad  loop,  which  bounds  the  center  of  the  city, 
and  it  is  essential  for  the  welfare  of  the  city  that  this 
area  be  extended  and  made  more  spacious.  The  City 
Plan  provides  for  a  "quadrangle"  to  cover  three  square 
miles  at  the  heart  of  Chicago,  to  be  bounded  on  the  east 
by  Michigan  Avenue,  on  the  north  by  Chicago  Avenue, 
on  the  west  by  Halsted  Street,  and  on  the  south  by 
Twelfth  Street.  When  this  work  is  done  these  streets 

184 


AN  OLYMPIAN  PLAN 

will  have  been  turned  into  wide  boulevards,  and  other 
streets,  running  through  the  quadrangle,  will  also  have 
been  widened  and  improved,  principal  among  these  be 
ing  Congress  Street,  which  though  not  at  present  cut 
through,  will  ultimately  form  a  great  central  artery, 
leading  back  from  the  lake,  through  the  center  of  the 
quadrangle,  forming  the  axis  of  the  plan,  and  centering 
on  a  "civic  center,"  which  is  to  be  built  at  the  junction  of 
Congress  and  Halsted  Streets  and  from  which  diagonal 
streets  will  radiate  in  all  directions. 

Nor  does  the  plan  end  here.  A  complete  system  of  ex 
terior  roadways  will  some  day  encircle  the  city;  the 
water  front  along  the  river  will  be  improved  and  new 
bridges  built;  also  two  outer  harbors  will  be  developed. 

By  an  agreement  with  the  city,  no  major  public  work 
of  any  description  is  inaugurated  until  the  Plan  Commis 
sion  has  passed  upon  its  harmonious  relationship  with 
the  general  scheme.  The  Commission  further  considers 
the  comprehensive  development  of  the  city's  steam  rail 
way  and  street  transportation  systems;  very  recently  it 
successfully  opposed  a  railroad  union  depot  project 
which  was  inimical  to  the  Plan  of  Chicago,  and  it  has 
generally  succeeded  in  persuading  the  railroads  to  work 
in  harmony  with  the  plan,  when  making  immediate  im 
provements. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  intelligently  con 
ducted  departments  under  the  Commission  has  to  do 
with  the  education  of  the  people  of  Chicago  with  regard 
to  the  Plan.  A  great  deal  of  money  and  energy  has  been 

185 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

expended  in  this  work,  with  the  result  that  city-wide 
misapprehension  concerning  the  Plan  has  given  place 
to  city-wide  comprehension.  Lectures  are  given  before 
schools  and  clubs  with  the  idea  of  teaching  Chicago  what 
the  plan  is,  why  it  is  needed,  and  what  great  European 
cities  have  accomplished  in  similar  directions.  Books 
on  the  subject  have  been  published  and  widely  circulated, 
and  one  of  these,  "Wacker's  Manual,"  has  been  adopted 
as  a  textbook  by  the  Chicago  Public  Schools,  with  the 
idea  of  fitting  the  coming  generations  to  carry  on  the 
work. 

If  the  plan  as  it  stands  at  present  has  been  ac 
complished  within  a  long  lifetime,  Chicago  will  have 
maintained  her  reputation  for  swift  action.  Two  or 
three  lifetimes  would  be  time  enough  in  any  other  city. 
However,  Chicago  desires  the  fulfillment  of  the  prophecy 
she  has  on  paper.  Work  is  going  on,  and  the  extent 
to  which  it  will  go  on  in  future  depends  entirely  upon 
the  ability  of  the  city  to  finance  Plan  projects.  And 
when  a  thing  depends  upon  the  ability  of  the  city  of 
Chicago,  it  depends  upon  a  very  solid  and  a  very  splen 
did  thing. 


186 


CHAPTER  XVI 
LOOKING  BACKWARD 

THE  Chicago  Club  is  the  rich,  substantial  club  of 
the  city,  an  organization  which  may  perhaps  be 
compared  with  the  Union  Club  of  New  York, 
although  the  inner  atmosphere  of  the  Chicago  Club 
seems  somehow  less  formal  than  that  of  its  New  York 
prototype.  However,  that  is  true  in  general  where 
Chicago  clubs  and  New  York  clubs  are  compared. 

The  University  Club  of  Chicago  has  a  very  large  and 
handsome  building  in  the  Gothic  style,  with  a  dining 
room  said  to  be  the  handsomest  club  dining  room  in  the 
world:  a  Gothic  hall  with  fine  stained-glass  windows. 
Between  this  club-house  and  the  great  Gothic  piles  of 
the  Chicago  University  there  exists  an  agreeable, 
though  perhaps  quite  accidental,  architectural  har 
mony. 

Excepting  Washington  University,  in  St.  Louis, 
Chicago  University  is  the  one  great  American  college  I 
have  seen  which  seems  fully  to  have  anticipated  its  own 
vastness,  and  prepared  for  it  with  comprehensive  plans 
for  the  grouping  of  its  buildings.  Architecturally  it  is 
already  exceedingly  harmonious  and  effective,  for  its 
great  halls,  all  of  gray  Bedford  stone,  are  beginning  to 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

be  toned  by  the  Chicago  smoke  into  what  will  some  day 
be  Oxonian  mellowness.  Even  now,  by  virtue  of  its 
ancient  architecture,  its  great  size  and  massiveness,  it 
is  not  without  an  effect  of  age — an  effect  which  is, 
however,  violently  disputed  by  the  young  trees  of  the 
campus.  Though  these  trees  have  grown  as  fast  as 
they  could,  they  have  not  been  able  to  keep  up  with 
the  growth  of  the  great  institution  of  learning,  ferti 
lized,  as  it  has  been,  by  Mr.  Rockefeller's  millions.  In 
stead  of  shading  the  university,  the  campus  trees  are 
shaded  by  it. 

The  South  Shore  Country  Club  is  an  astonishing 
resort:  a  huge  pavilion,  by  the  lake,  on  the  site  of 
the  old  World's  Fair  grounds.  It  is  a  pleasant  place  to 
which  to  motor  for  meals,  and  is  much  used,  especially 
for  dining,  in  the  summer  time.  The  building  of  this 
club  made  me  think  of  Atlantic  City;  I  felt  that  I  was 
not  in  a  club  at  all,  but  in  the  rotunda  of  some  vast  hotel 
by  the  sea. 

I  had  no  opportunity  to  visit  The  Little  Room,  a  small 
club  reported  to  be  Chicago's  artistic  holy  of  holies, 
but  I  did  have  luncheon  at  the  Cliff  Dwellers,  which  is 
the  larger  and,  I  believe,  more  active  organization. 
The  Cliff  Dwellers  is  a  fine  club,  made  up  of  writers 
and  artists  and  their  friends  and  allies.  I  know  of  no 
single  club  in  New  York  where  one  may  meet  at 
luncheon  a  group  of  men  more  alive,  more  interesting, 
or  of  more  varied  pursuits,  and  I  may  add  that  I  ab- 

188 


LOOKING  BACKWARD 

sorbed  while  there  a  very  definite  impression  that  be 
tween  men  following  the  arts,  and  those  following  busi 
ness,  the  line  is  not  so  sharply  drawn  in  Chicago  as  in 
New  York. 

At  the  Cliff  Dwellers  I  met  a  gentleman,  a  librarian, 
who  gave  me  some  interesting  information  about  the 
management  of  libraries  in  Chicago. 

"Chicago  is  a  business  city,  dominated  by  business 
men/'  he  said.  "We  have  three  large  public  libraries, 
one  the  Chicago  Public  Library,  belonging  to  the  city, 
and  two  others,  the  Newberry  and  the  Crerar,  estab 
lished  by  rich  men  who  left  money  for  the  pur 
pose. 

"The  system  of  interlocking  directorates,  elsewhere 
pronounced  pernicious,  has  worked  very  beautifully  in 
affecting  cooperation  instead  of  competition  between 
these  institutions. 

"About  twenty  years  ago,  at  the  time  of  the  Crerar 
foundation,  the  boards  of  the  three  libraries  met  and 
formed  a  gentleman's  agreement,  dividing  the  field  of 
knowledge.  It  was  then  arranged  that  the  Chicago 
Public  Library  should  take  care  of  the  majority  of  the 
people,  and  that  the  Newberry  and  the  Crerar  should 
specialize,  the  former  in  what  is  called  the  'Humanities' 
— philosophy,  religion,  history,  literature,  and  the  fine 
arts;  the  latter  in  science,  pure  and  applied.  At  that 
time  the  Newberry  Library  turned  over  to  the  Crerar, 
at  cost,  all  books  it  possessed  which  properly  belonged 
in  the  scientific  category.  And  since  that  time  there 

189 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

has  been  practically  no  duplication  among  Chicago 
libraries.  That  is  what  comes  of  having  public-spir 
ited  business  men  on  library  boards.  They  run  these 
public  institutions  as  they  would  run  their  own  com 
mercial  enterprises.  The  Harvester  Company,  for  ex 
ample,  would  n't  duplicate  its  own  plant  right  in  the 
same  territory.  That  would  be  waste.  But  in  many 
cities  possessing  more  than  one  library,  duplication  of 
an  exactly  parallel  kind  goes  on,  because  the  libraries  do 
not  work  together.  Boston  affords  a  good  example. 
Between  the  Boston  Public  Library,  the  Athenaeum,  and 
the  library  of  Harvard  University,  there  is  much  dupli 
cation.  Of  course  a  university  library  is  obliged  to 
stand  more  or  less  alone,  but  it  is  possible  even  for  such 
a  library  to  cooperate  to  some  extent  with  others,  and, 
wherever  it  is  possible  to  do  so,  the  library  of  the 
University  of  Chicago  does  work  with  others  in  Chi 
cago.  Even  the  Art  Institute  is  in  the  combina 
tion." 

I  do  not  quote  this  information  because  the  arrange 
ment  between  the  libraries  of  Chicago  strikes  me  as  a 
thing  particularly  startling,  but  for  precisely  the  oppo 
site  reason:  it  is  one  of  those  unstartling  examples  of 
uncommon  common  sense  which  one  might  easily  over 
look  in  considering  the  Plan  of  Chicago,  in  gazing  at 
great  buildings  wreathed  in  whirling  smoke,  or  in  con 
templating  that  allegory  of  infinity  which  confronts  one 
who  looks  eastward  from  the  bold  front  of  Michigan 
Avenue  along  Grant  Park. 

190 


LOOKING  BACKWARD 

The  automobile,  which  has  been  such  an  agency  for 
the  promotion  of  suburban  and  country  life,  seems 
to  have  the  habit  of  invading,  for  its  own  commercial 
purposes,  those  former  residence  districts,  in  cities, 
which  it  has  been  the  means  of  depopulating.  I  noticed 
that  in  Cleveland.  There  the  automobile  offered  the 
residents  of  Euclid  Avenue  a  swift  and  agreeable  means 
of  transportation  to  a  pleasanter  environment.  Then, 
having  lured  them  away,  it  proceeded  to  seize  upon 
their  former  lands  for  showrooms,  garages,  and  auto 
mobile  accessory  shops.  The  same  thing  has  happened 
in  Chicago  on  Michigan  Avenue,  where  an  "automobile 
row"  extends  for  blocks  beyond  the  uptown  extremity 
of  Grant  Park,  through  a  region  which  but  a  few  years 
since  was  one  of  fashionable  residences. 

I  do  not  like  to  make  the  admission,  because  of  loyal 
memories  of  the  old  South  Side,  but — there  is  no  deny 
ing  it — the  South  Side  has  run  down.  In  its  struggle 
with  the  North  Side,  for  leadership,  it  has  come  off  a 
sorry  second.  In  point  of  social  prestige,  as  in  the 
matter  of  beauty,  it  is  unqualifiedly  whipped.  Cottage 
Grove  Avenue,  never  a  pleasant  street,  has  deteriorated 
now  into  something  which,  along  certain  reaches,  has  a 
painful  resemblance  to  a  slum. 

It  hurt  me  to  see  that,  for  I  remember  when  the  little 
dummy  line  ran  out  from  Thirty-ninth  Street  to  Hyde 
Park,  most  of  the  way  between  fields  and  woods  and 
little  farms.  I  had  forgotten  the  dummy  line  until  I 
saw  the  place  from  which  it  used  to  start.  Then,  back 

191 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

through  twenty-eight  or  thirty  years,  I  heard  again  its 
shrill  whistle  and  saw  the  conductor,  little  "Mister 
Dodge/'  as  he  used  to  come  around  for  fares,  when  we 
were  going  out  to  Fifty-fifth  Street  to  pick  violets. 
There  are  no  violets  now  at  Fifty-fifth  Street.  I  saw 
nothing  there  but  rows  of  sordid-looking  buildings, 
jammed  against  the  street. 

Everywhere,  as  I  journeyed  about  the  city  how  many 
memories  assailed  me.  When  I  lived  in  Chicago  the 
Masonic  Temple  was  the  great  show  building  of  the 
town:  the  highest  building  in  the  world,  it  was,  then. 
The  Art  Institute  was  in  the  brown  stone  pile  now  oc 
cupied  by  the  Chicago  Club.  The  turreted  stone  house 
of  Potter  Palmer,  on  the  Lake  Shore  Drive  was  the 
city's  most  admired  residence — a  would-be  baronial 
structure  which,  standing  there  to-day,  is  a  humorous 
thing :  a  grandiose  attempt,  falling  far  short  of  being  a 
good  castle,  and  going  far  beyond  the  architectural 
bounds  of  a  good  house.  Then  there  was  the  old  Pal 
mer  House  hotel,  with  its  great  billiard  and  poolroom, 
and  its  once-famous  barbershop,  with  a  silver  dollar  set 
at  the  corner  of  each  marble  tile  in  its  floor,  to  amaze 
the  rural  visitor.  The  Palmer  House  is  still  there, 
looking  no  older  than  it  used  to  look.  And  most  fa 
miliar  of  all,  the  toy  suburban  trains  of  the  Illinois  Cen- 
trail  Railroad  continue  to  puff,  importantly,  along  the 
lake  front,  their  locomotives  issuing  great  clouds  of 
steam  and  smoke,  which  are  snatched  by  the  lake  wind, 
and  hurled  like  giant  snowballs — dirty  snowballs,  full  of 

192 


As  I  stood  there,  studying  the  temperament  of  pigs,   I   saw  the 
butcher  looking  up  at  me.  ...   I  have  never  seen  such  eyes 


LOOKING  BACKWARD 

cinders — at  the  imperturbable  stone  front  of  Michigan 
Avenue. 

Chicago  has  talked,  for  years,  of  causing  the  Illinois 
Central  Railroad  to  run  its  trains  by  electricity.  No 
doubt  they  should  be  run  in  that  way.  No  doubt  the 
decline  of  the  South  Side  and  the  ascendancy  of  the 
North  Side  has  been  caused  largely  by  the  fact  that  the 
South  Side  lakefront  is  taken  up  with  tracks  and  trains, 
while  the  North  Side  lakefront  is  taken  up  with  parks 
and  boulevards.  Still,  I  love  the  Chicago  smoke.  In 
some  other  city  I  should  not  love  it,  but  in  Chicago  it  is 
part  of  the  old  picture,  and  for  sentimental  reasons, 
I  had  rather  pay  the  larger  laundry  bills,  than  see  it 

g°- 

One  day  I  went  down  to  the  station  at  Van  Buren 
Street,  and  took  the  funny  little  train  to  Oakland,  where 
I  used  to  live.  One  after  the  other,  I  passed  the  old, 
dilapidated  stations,  looking  more  run  down  than  ever. 
Even  the  Oakland  Station  was  unchanged,  and  its  sur 
roundings  were  as  I  remembered  them,  except  for  signs 
of  a  sad,  indefinite  decay. 

Strange  sensations,  those  which  come  to  a  man  when 
he  visits,  after  a  long  lapse  of  years,  the  places  he  knew 
best  in  childhood.  The  changes.  The  things  which 
are  unchanged.  The  familiar  unfamiliarity.  The 
vivid  recollections  which  loom  suddenly,  like  silent  ships, 
from  out  the  fog  of  things  forgotten.  In  that  house 
over  there  lived  a  boy  named  Ben  Ford,  who  moved 
away — to  where?  And  Gertie  Hoyt,  his  cousin,  lived 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

next  door.  She  had  a  great  thick  braid  of  golden  hair. 
But  where  is  Guy  Hardy's  house?  Where  is  the 
Lonergans' — the  Lonergans  who  used  to  have  the 
goat  and  wagon?  How  can  those  houses  be  so 
completely  gone?  Were  they  not  built  of  timber? 
And  what  is  memory  built  of,  that  it  should  outlast 
them?  Mr.  Rand's  house — there  it  is,  with  its  high 
porch!  But  where  are  the  cherry  trees?  Where 
is  the  round  flower  bed  ?  And  what  on  earth  have  they 
been  doing  to  the  neighborhood?  Why  have  they 
moved  all  the  houses  closer  to  the  street  and  spoiled  the 
old  front  yards?  Then  the  heartshaking  realiza 
tion  that  they  had  n't  moved  the  houses ;  that  the  yards 
were  the  same;  that  they  had  always  been  small  and 
cramped;  that  the  only  change  was  in  the  eye  of  him 
who  had  come  back. 

No;  not  the  only  change,  but  the  great  one.  Almost 
all  the  linden  trees  that  formed  a  line  beside  my  grand 
father's  house  are  gone.  The  four  which  remain 
are  n't  large  trees,  after  all. 

The  vacant  lot  next  door  is  blotted  out  by  a  row  of 
cheap  apartment  houses.  But  there  is  the  Borden 
house  standing  stanch,  solid,  austere  as  ever,  behind  its 
iron  fence.  How  afraid  we  used  to  be  of  Mr.  Borden ! 
Can  he  be  living  still?  And  has  he  mellowed  in  old 
age? — for  the  spite  fence  is  torn  down!  Next  door, 
there,  is  the  house  in  which  I  went  to  my  first  party 
— in  a  velveteen  suit  and  wide  lace  collar.  There  was 
a  lady  at  that  party;  she  wore  a  velvet  dress  and  was 

194 


LOOKING  BACKWARD 

the  most  beautiful  lady  that  I  ever  saw.     She  is  several 
times  a  grandmother  now — still  beautiful. 

The  gentleman  who  owns  the  house  in  which  I  used 
to  live  had  heard  I  was  in  town,  and  was  so  kind  as  to 
think  that  it  would  interest  me  to  see  the  place  again. 

I  never  was  more  grateful  to  a  man! 

The  house  was  not  so  large  as  I  had  thought  it.  The 
majestic  "parlor"  had  shrunk  from  an  enormous  to  a 
normal  room.  But  there  was  the  wide  hardwood  ban 
ister  rail,  down  which  I  used  to  slide,  and  there  was 
the  alcove,  off  the  big  front  bedroom,  where  they  put 
me  when  I  had  the  accident;  and  there  was  the  place 
\vhere  my  crib  stood.  I  had  forgotten  all  about  that 
crib,  but  suddenly  I  saw  it,  with  its  inclosing  sides  of 
walnut  slats.  However,  it  was  not  until  I  mounted  to 
the  attic  that  the  strangest  memories  besieged  me.  The 
instant  I  entered  the  attic  I  knew  the  smell.  In  all  the 
world  there  is  no  smell  exactly  like  the  smell  which 
haunts  the  attic  of  that  house.  With  it  there  came  to 
me  the  picture  of  old  Ellen  and  the  recollection  of  a 
rainy  day,  when  she  set  me  to  work  in  the  attic,  driving 
tacks  into  cakes  of  laundry  soap.  That  was  the  day  I 
fell  downstairs  and  broke  my  collarbone. 

Leaving  the  house  I  went  out  to  the  alley.  Ah !  those 
beloved  back  fences  and  the  barns  in  which  we  used  to 
play.  Where  were  the  old  colored  coachmen  who  were 
so  good  to  us?  Where  was  little  Ed,  ex-jockey,  and 
ex-slave?  Where  was  Artis?  Where  was  William? 
William  must  be  getting  old. 

195 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

At  the  door  of  his  barn  I  paused  and,  not  without 
some  faint  feeling  of  fear,  knocked.  The  door  opened. 
A  young  colored  man  stood  within.  He  wore  a  chauf 
feur's  cap.  So  the  old  surrey  was  gone!  There  was 
a  motor  now. 

"Where's  William?"  I  asked. 

"William  ain't  here  no  more/'  he  said. 

"But  where  is  he?" 

"Oh,  he 's  most  generally  around  the  alley,  some 
place,  or  in  some  of  the  houses.  He  does  odd  jobs." 

"Thanks,"  I  said  and,  turning,  walked  up  the  alley, 
fearing  lest  I  should  not  be  able  to  find  the  old  colored 
man  who,  perhaps  more  than  any  one  outside  my  family, 
was  the  true  friend  of  my  boyhood. 

Then,  as  I  moved  along,  I  saw  him  far  away  and 
recognized  him  by  the  familiar,  slouching  step.  And 
as  I  walked  to  meet  him,  and  as  we  drew  near  to  each 
other  in  that  long  narrow  alley,  it  seemed  to  me  that 
here  was  another  allegory  in  which  the  alley  somehow 
represented  life. 

How  glad  we  were  to  meet!  William  looked  older, 
his  close-cropped  wool  was  whiter,  he  stooped  a  little 
more,  but  he  had  the  same  old  solemn  drawl,  the  same 
lustrous  dark  eye  with  the  twinkle  in  it,  even  the  same 
old  corncob  pipe — or  another  like  it,  burned  down  at 
the  edge. 

We  stood  there  for  a  long  time,  exchanging  news. 
Ed  had  gone  down  South  with  the  Bakers  when  they 
moved  away.  Artis  was  on  "the  force." 

196 


o 


^  o- 

•4    5* 


? 


LOOKING  BACKWARD 

"The  neighborhood  's  changed  a  good  bit  since  you 
was  here.  Lots  of  the  old  families  have  gone.  I  'm 
almost  a  stranger  around  the  alley  myself  now.  I  must 
be  a  pretty  tough  old  nut,  the  way  I  keep  hangin'  on." 
He  smiled  as  he  said  that. 

"Of  course  I  '11  see  you  when  I  come  out  to  Chicago 
again,"  I  said  as  we  shook  hands  at  parting. 

William  looked  up  at  the  sky,  much  as  a  man  will 
look  for  signs  of  rain.  Then  with  another  smile  he  let 
his  eyes  drift  slowly  downward  from  the  heavens. 

"Well,"  he  said  in  his  nasal  drawl,  "I  guess  I  '11  see 
you  again  some  time — some  place." 

I  turned  and  moved  away. 

Then,  of  a  sudden,  a  back  gate  swung  open  with  a 
violent  bang  against  the  fence,  and  four  or  five  boys  in 
short  trousers  leaped  out  and  ran,  yelling,  helter-skelter 
up  the  alley. 

I  had  the  curious  feeling  that  among  them  was  the 
boy  I  used  to  be. 


197 


fIN  MIZZOURA' 


CHAPTER  XVII 
SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

"The  moderation  of  prosperous  people  comes  from  the 
calm  which  good  fortune  gives  to  their  temper." 

— LA  ROCHEFOUCAULD. 

SOME  years  ago,  while  riding  westward  through 
the   Alleghenies    in   an   observation   car    of   the 
Pennsylvania  Limited,  a  friend  of  mine  fell  into 
conversation  with  an  old  gentleman  who  sat  in  the  next 
chair. 

"Evidently  he  knew  a  good  deal  about  that  region/' 
said  my  friend,  in  telling  me  of  the  incident  later.  "We 
must  have  sat  there  together  for  a  couple  of  hours.  He 
did  most  of  the  talking;  I  could  see  that  he  enjoyed  talk 
ing,  and  was  glad  to  have  a  listener.  Before  he  got  off 
he  shook  hands  with  me  and  said  he  was  glad  to  have 
had  the  little  chat.  Then,  when  he  was  gone,  the  train 
man  came  and  asked  me  if  I  knew  who  he  was.  I 
did  n't.  Come  to  find  out,  it  was  Andrew  Carnegie." 

I  asked  my  friend  how  Mr.  Carnegie  impressed  him. 

"Oh,"  he  replied,  "I  was  much  surprised  when  I  found 
it  had  been  he.  He  seemed  a  nice  old  fellow  enough, 
kindly  and  affable,  but  a  little  commonplace.  I  should 
never  have  called  him  an  'inspired  millionaire/  I  Ve 
been  reconstructing  him  in  my  mind  ever  since." 

201 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

I  am  reminded  of  my  friend's  experience  by  my  own 
meeting  with  the  city  of  St.  Louis ;  for  it  was  not  until 
after  I  had  left  St.  Louis  that  I  found  out  "who  it  is." 
That  is,  I  failed  to  focus,  while  there,  upon  the  fact  that 
it  is  America's  fourth  city.  And  now,  in  looking  back, 
I  feel  about  St.  Louis  as  my  friend  felt  about  the  iron 
master  :  I  do  not  think  it  looks  the  part. 

St.  Louis  leads  the  world  in  shoes,  stoves,  and  to 
bacco;  it  is  the  world's  greatest  market  for  hardware, 
lumber,  and  raw  furs ;  it  is  the  principal  horse  and  mule 
market  in  America;  it  builds  more  street  and  railroad 
cars  than  any  other  city  in  the  country;  it  distributes 
more  coffee;  it  makes  more  woodenware,  more  native 
chemicals,  more  beer.  It  leads  in  all  these  things.  But 
what  it  does  not  do  is  to  look  as  though  it  led.  Physi 
cally  it  is  a  great,  overgrown  American  town,  like  Buf 
falo  or  St.  Paul.  Its  streets  are,  for  the  most  part, 
lacking  in  distinction.  There  is  no  center  at  which  a 
visitor  might  stop,  knowing  by  instinct  that  he  was  at 
the  city's  heart.  It  is  a  rambling,  incoherent  place,  in 
which  one  has  to  ask  which  is  the  principal  retail  shop 
ping  corner.  Fancy  having  to  ask  a  thing  like  that ! 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  St.  Louis  is  much  worse, 
in  appearance,  than  some  other  American  cities.  For 
American  cities,  as  I  have  said  before,  have  only  re 
cently  awakened  to  the  need  of  broadly  planned  munici 
pal  beauty.  All  I  mean  is  that  St.  Louis  seems  to  be 
behind  in  taking  action  to  improve  herself. 

Almost  every  city  presents  a  paradox,  if  you  will  but 

202 


SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

find  it.  The  St.  Louis  paradox  is  that  she  is  a  fashion 
able  city  without  style.  But  that  is  not,  in  reality,  the 
paradox,  it  seems.  It  only  means  that  being  an  old, 
aristocratic  city,  with  a  wealthy  and  cosmopolitan  popu 
lation,  and  an  extraordinarily  cultivated  social  life,  St. 
Louis  yet  lacks  municipal  distinction.  It  is  a  dowdy 
city.  It  needs  to  be  taken  by  the  hand  and  led  around 
to  some  municipal-improvement  tailor,  some  civic  haber 
dasher,  who  will  dress  it  like  the  gentleman  it  really  is. 
I  remember  a  well-to-do  old  man  who  used  to  be  like 
that.  His  daughters  were  obliged  to  drag  him  down  to 
get  new  clothes.  Always  he  insisted  that  the  old  frock 
coat  was  plenty  good  enough ;  that  he  could  n't  spare 
time  and  the  money  for  a  new  one.  Nevertheless,  he 
could  well  afford  new  clothes,  and  so  can  St.  Louis. 
The  city  debt  is  relatively  small,  and  there  are  only  two 
American  cities  of  over  350,000  population  which  have 
a  lower  tax-rate.  These  two  are  San  Francisco  and 
Cleveland.  And  either  one  of  them  can  set  a  good  ex 
ample  to  St.  Louis,  in  the  matter  of  self-improvement. 
San  Francisco,  with  a  population  hardly  more  than  half 
that  of  St.  Louis,  is  yet  an  infinitely  more  important- 
looking  city;  while  Minneapolis  or  Denver  might  im 
press  a  casual  visitor,  roaming  their  streets,  as  being 
equal  to  St.  Louis  in  commerce  and  population,  although 
the  Missouri  metropolis  is,  in  reality,  considerably 
greater  than  the  two  combined.  However,  in  consider 
ing  the  foibles  of  an  old  city  we  should  be  lenient,  as  in 
considering  those  of  an  old  man. 

203 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Old  men  and  old  cities  did  not  enjoy,  in  their  youth, 
the  advantages  which  are  enjoyed  to-day  by  young  men 
and  young  cities.  Life  was  harder,  and  precedent,  in 
many  lines,  was  wanting.  Excepting  in  a  few  rare  in 
stances,  as,  for  example,  in  Detroit  and  Savannah,  the 
laying  out  of  cities  seems  to  have  been  taken  care  of,  in 
the  early  days,  as  much  by  cows  as  men.  Look  at  Bos 
ton,  or  lower  New  York,  or  St.  Paul,  or  St.  Louis. 
How  little  did  the  men  who  founded  those  cities  dream 
of  the  proportions  to  which  they  would  some  day  attain ! 
With  cities  which  have  begun  to  develop  within  the  last 
fifty  or  sixty  years,  it  has  been  different,  for  there  has 
been  precedent  to  show  them  what  is  possible  when  an 
American  city  really  starts  to  grow.  To-day  all  Ameri 
can  cities,  even  down  to  the  smallest  towns,  have  a 
sneaking  suspicion  that  they  may  some  day  become 
great,  too — great,  that  is,  by  comparison  with  what  they 
are.  And  those  which  are  not  altogether  lacking  in 
energy  are  prepared,  at  least  in  a  small  way,  to  en 
counter  greatness  when,  at  last,  it  comes. 

Baedeker  says  St.  Louis  was  founded  as  a  fur-trading 
station  by  the  French  in  1756.  "All  About  St.  Louis/' 
a  publication  compiled  by  the  St.  Louis  Advertising 
Men's  League,  gives  the  date  1764.  Pierre  Laclede  was 
the  founder,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  some  of  his 
descendants  still  reside  there. 

When  Louis  XV  ceded  the  territory  to  the  east  of  the 
Mississippi  to  the  English,  he  also  ceded  the  west  bank 
to  Spain  by  secret  treaty.  Spanish  authority  was  estab- 

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The  dilapidation  of  the  quarter  has  continued  steadily  from  Dickens's  d-y 
to  this,  and  the  beauty  now  to  be  discovered  there  is  that  of  decav  and  rui:", 


SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

lished  in  St.  Louis  in  1770,  but  in  1804  the  town  became 
a  part  of  the  United  States,  as  a  portion  of  the  Lou 
isiana  Purchase. 

In  the  old  days  the  city  had  but  three  streets:  the 
Rue  Royale,  one  block  back  from  the  levee  (now  Main 
Street) ;  the  Rue  de  1'Eglise,  or  Church  Street  (now 
Second) ;  and  the  Rue  des  Granges,  or  Barn  Street  (now 
Third). 

Though  a  few  of  the  old  French  houses,  in  a  woeful 
state  of  dilapidation,  may  still  be  seen  in  this  neighbor 
hood,  it  is  now  for  the  most  part  given  over  to  commis 
sion  merchants,  warehouses,  and  slums. 

Charles  Dickens,  writing  of  St.  Louis  in  1842,  de 
scribes  this  quarter : 

"In  the  old  French  portion  of  the  town  the  thorough 
fares  are  narrow  and  crooked,  and  some  of  the  houses 
are  very  quaint  and  picturesque:  being  built  of  wood, 
with  tumble-down  galleries  before  the  windows,  ap 
proachable  by  stairs  or  rather  ladders  from  the  street. 
There  are  queer  little  barbers'  shops  and  drinking 
houses,  too,  in  this  quarter;  and  abundance  of  crazy  old 
tenements  with  blinking  casements,  such  as  may  be  seen 
in  Flanders.  Some  of  these  ancient  habitations,  with 
high  garret  gable  windows  perking  into  the  roofs,  have 
a  kind  of  French  shrug  about  them ;  and,  being  lopsided 
with  age,  appear  to  hold  their  heads  askew,  besides,  as 
if  they  were  grimacing  in  astonishment  at  the  American 
improvements. 

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"It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  these  consist  of 
wharves  and  warehouses  and  new  buildings  in  all  direc 
tions;  and  of  a  great  many  vast  plans  which  are  still 
'progressing/  Already,  however,  some  very  good 
houses,  broad  streets,  and  marble-fronted  shops  have 
gone  so  far  ahead  as  to  be  in  a  state  of  completion,  and 
the  town  bids  fair  in  a  few  years  to  improve  consid 
erably;  though  it  is  not  likely  ever  to  vie,  in  point  of 
elegance  or  beauty,  with  Cincinnati.  .  .  .  The  Roman 
Catholic  religion,  introduced  here  by  the  early  French 
settlers,  prevails  extensively.  Among  the  public  insti 
tutions  are  a  Jesuit  college,  a  convent  for  'the  Ladies  of 
the  Sacred  Heart/  and  a  large  chapel  attached  to  the 
college,  which  was  in  course  of  erection  at  the  time  of 
my  visit.  .  .  .  The  architect  of  this  building  is  one  of 
the  reverend  fathers.  .  .  .  The  organ  will  be  sent  from 
Belgium.  ...  In  addition  to  these  establishments  there 
is  a  Roman  Catholic  cathedral. 

"No  man  ever  admits  the  unhealthiness  of  the  place 
he  dwells  in  (unless  he  is  going  away  from  it),  and  I 
shall  therefore,  I  have  no  doubt,  be  at  issue  with  the 
inhabitants  of  St.  Louis  in  questioning  the  perfect  sa 
lubrity  of  its  climate.  ...  It  is  very  hot  .  .  /' 

The  cathedral  of  which  Dickens  wrote  remains,  per 
haps,  the  most  sturdy  building  in  the  section  which 
forms  the  old  town.  It  is  a  venerable-looking  pile  of 
gray  granite,  built  to  last  forever,  and  suggesting,  with 
its  French  inscriptions  and  its  exotic  look,  a  bit  of  old 

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SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

Quebec.  But  for  the  most  part  the  dilapidation  of  the 
quarter  has  continued  steadily  from  Dickens's  day  to 
this,  and  the  beauty  now  to  be  discovered  there  is  that 
of  decay  and  ruin — pathetic  beauty  to  charm  the  etcher, 
but  sadden  the  lover  of  improvement,  whose  battle  cry 
invariably  involves  the  overworked  word  "civic." 

An  exception  to  the  general  slovenliness  of  this  quar 
ter  is  to  be  seen  in  the  old  Merchants'  Exchange  Hall 
on  Main  Street.  Built  nearly  sixty  years  ago,  this 
building,  now  disused  and  dilapidated,  nevertheless 
shows  a  fagade  of  a  distinction  rare  in  structures  of  its 
time.  I  was  surprised  to  discover  that  this  old  hall  was 
not  better  known  in  St.  Louis,  and  I  cheerfully  recom 
mend  it  to  the  notice  of  those  who  esteem  the  architec 
ture  of  the  Jefferson  Memorial,  the  bulky  new  cathedral 
on  Lindell  Boulevard,  or  that  residence,  suggestive  of 
the  hanging  gardens  of  Babylon,  at  Hortense  Place  and 
King's  Highway.  Take  the  old  Merchants'  Exchange 
Hall  away  from  dirty,  cobbled  Main  Street,  set  it  up, 
instead,  in  Venice,  beside  the  Grand  Canal,  and  watch 
the  tourist  from  St.  Louis  stop  his  gondola  to  gaze! 

But  what  city  has  respected  its  ruins?  Rome  used 
her  palaces  as  mines  for  building  material.  St.  Louis 
destroyed  the  wonderful  old  mound  which  used  to  stand 
at  the  corner  of  Mound  Street  and  Broadway,  forming 
one  of  the  most  interesting  archeological  remains  in  the 
country  and,  together  with  smaller  mounds  near  by,  giv 
ing  St.  Louis  her  title  of  "Mound  City." 

With  Dickens's  statements  concerning  the  St.  Louis 

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summer  climate,  the  publication,  "All  About  St.  Louis/' 
does  not,  for  one  moment,  agree.  In  it  I  find  an  article 
headed:  "St.  Louis  has  Better  Weather  than  Other 
Cities,"  the  preamble  to  which  contains  the  following 
solemn  truth: 

The  weather  question  is  purely  local  and  individual. 
Every  person  forms  his  own  opinion  about  the  weather 
by  the  way  it  affects  him,  wherever  he  happens  to  be. 

Having  made  that  clear,  the  writer  becomes  more 
specific.  He  informs  us  that,  in  St.  Louis,  "the  pre 
vailing  winds  in  summer  blow  over  the  Ozark  Moun 
tains,  insuring  cool  nights  and  pleasant  days."  Also 
that  "during  the  summer  the  temperature  does  not  run 
so  high,  and  warm  spells  do  not  last  so  long  as  in  many 
cities  of  the  North."  The  latter  statement  is  supported 
—as  almost  every  statement  in  the  world,  it  seems  to 
me,  can  be  supported — by  statistics.  What  wonderful 
things  statistics  are!  How  I  wish  Charles  Dickens 
might  have  seen  these.  How  surprised  he  wrould  have 
been.  How  surprised  I  was — for  I.  too,  have  visited 
St.  Louis  in  the  middle  of  the  year.  Yes,  and  so  has  my 
companion.  He  went  to  St.  Louis  several  years  ago  to 
attend  the  Democratic  National  Convention,  but  he  is 
all  right  again  now. 

I  showed  him  the  statistics. 

"Why!''  he  cried.     "I  ought  to  have  been  told  of  this 
before!" 

"What  for?"  I  demanded. 

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SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

"If  I  had  had  this  information  at  the  time  of  the  con 
vention/'  he  declared,  "I  'd  have  known  enough  not  to 
have  been  laid  up  in  bed  for  six  weeks  with  heat  pros 
tration." 

Though  the  downtown  portion  of  St.  Louis  is,  as  I 
have  said,  lacking  in  coherence  and  distinction,  there 
are,  nevertheless,  a  number  of  buildings  in  that  section 
which  are,  for  one  reason  or  another,  notable.  The  old 
Courthouse,  on  Chestnut  and  Market  Streets,  between 
Fourth  and  Fifth,  is  getting  well  along  toward  its  cen 
tennial,  and  is  interesting,  both  as  a  dignified  old  granite 
pile  and  as  the  scene  of  the  whipping  post,  and  of  slave 
sales  which  were  held  upon  its  steps  during  the  Civil 
War. 

Not  far  from  the  old  Courthouse  stands  another 
building  typifying  all  that  is  modern — the  largest  office 
building  in  the  world,  a  highly  creditable  structure,  oc 
cupying  an  entire  city  block,  built  from  designs  by  St. 
Louis  architects :  Mauran,  Russell  &  Crowell.  Another 
building,  notable  for  its  beauty,  is  the  Central  Public 
Library,  a  very  simple,  well-proportioned  building  of 
gray  granite,  designed  by  Cass  Gilbert. 

The  St.  Louis  Union  Station  is  interesting  for  several 
reasons.  When  built,  it  was  the  largest  station  in  the 
world — one  of  the  first  great  stations  of  the  modern 
type.  It  contains,  under  its  roof,  five  and  a  half  miles 
of  track,  and  though  it  has  been  surpassed,  architec 
turally,  by  some  more  recent  stations,  it  is  still  a  spec- 

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tacular  building — or  rather  it  would  be,  were  it  not  for 
its  setting,  among  narrow  streets,  lined  with  cheap 
saloons,  lunch  rooms,  and  lodging  houses.  That  any 
city  capable  of  building  such  a  splendid  terminal  could, 
at  the  same  time,  be  capable  of  leaving  it  in  such  en 
vironment  is  a  thing  baffling  to  the  comprehension.  It 
must,  however,  be  said  that  efforts  have  been  made  to 
improve  this  condition.  Six  or  seven  years  ago  the 
Civic  League  proposed  to  buy  the  property  facing  the 
station  and  turn  it  into  a  park.  St.  Louis  somnolence 
defeated  this  project.  The  City  Plan  Commission  now 
has  a  more  elaborate  suggestion  which,  if  accepted,  will 
not  only  place  the  station  in  a  proper  setting,  but  also 
reclaim  a  large  area,  in  the  geographical  center  of  the 
city,  which  has  suffered  a  blight,  and  which  is  steadily 
deteriorating,  although  through  it  run  the  chief  lines  of 
travel  between  the  business  and  residence  portions  of 
the  city. 

This  project,  if  put  through,  will  be  a  fine  step  toward 
the  creation,  in  downtown  St.  Louis,  of  some  outward 
indication  of  the  real  importance  of  the  city.  The  plan 
involves  the  gutting  of  a  strip,  one  block  wide  and  two 
miles  long;  the  tearing  out  of  everything  between  Mar 
ket  and  Chestnut  Streets,  all  the  way  from  Twelfth 
Street,  which  is  the  eastern  boundary  of  the  City  Hall 
Square,  to  Grand  Avenue  on  the  west.  Here  it  is  pro 
posed  to  construct  a  Central  Traffic  Parkway,  which  will 
pass  directly  in  front  of  the  station,  connecting  it  with 
both  the  business  and  residence  districts,  and  will  also 

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SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

pass  in  front  of  the  Municipal  Court  Building  and  the 
City  Hall,  located  farther  downtown.  The  plan  in 
volves  an  arrangement  similar  to  that  of  the  Champs- 
Elysees,  with  a  wide  central  drive,  parked  on  either  side, 
for  swift-moving  vehicles,  and  exterior  roads  for  heavy 
traffic. 

An  expert  in  such  work  has  said  that  "city  plan 
ning  has  few  functions  more  important  than  the  restora 
tion  of  impaired  property  values."  American  cities  are 
coming  to  comprehend  that  investment  in  intelligently 
planned  improvements,  such  as  this,  have  to  do  not  only 
with  city  dignity  and  city  self-respect,  but  that  they  pay 
for  themselves.  If  St.  Louis  wants  to  find  that  out,  she 
has  but  to  visit  her  western  neighbor,  Kansas  City, 
where  the  construction  of  Paseo  boulevard  did  redeem  a 
blighted  district,  transforming  it  into  an  excellent  neigh 
borhood,  doubling  or  trebling  the  value  of  adjacent 
property,  and,  of  course,  yielding  the  city  increased 
revenue  from  taxes. 

A  matter  more  deplorable  than  the  setting  of  the  sta 
tion  is  the  unparalleled  situation  which  exists  with  re 
gard  to  the  Free  Bridge.  Though  the  echoes  of  this 
scandal  have  been  heard,  more  or  less,  throughout  the 
country,  it  is  perhaps  necessary  to  give  a  brief  summary 
of  the  matter  as  it  stands  at  present. 

The  three  used  bridges  which  cross  the  Mississippi 
River  at  St.  Louis  are  privately  controlled  toll  bridges. 
Working  people,  passing  to  and  fro,  are  obliged  to  pay 
a  five-cent  toll  in  excess  of  car  fare.  Goods  are  also 

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taxed.  It  was  with  the  purpose  of  defeating  this 
monopoly  that  the  Free  Bridge  was  constructed.  But 
after  the  body  of  the  bridge  was  built,  factional  fights 
developed  as  to  the  placing  of  approaches,  and  as  a  re 
sult,  the  approaches  have  never  been  built.  Thus,  the 
bridge  stands  to-day,  as  it  has  stood  for  several  years,  a 
thing  costly,  grotesque,  and  useless,  spanning  the  river, 
its  two  ends  jutting  out,  inanely,  over  the  opposing 
shores.  In  the  meantime  the  city  is  paying  interest  on 
the  bridge  bonds  at  the  rate  of  something  over  $300  per 
day.  The  question  of  approaches  has  come  before  the 
city  at  several  elections,  but  the  people  have  so  far  failed 
to  vote  the  necessary  bonds.  The  history  of  the  voting 
on  this  subject  plainly  shows  indifference.  In  one  elec 
tion  the  Twenty-eighth  Ward,  which  is  the  rich  and 
fashionable  ward,  cast  only  2,325  votes,  on  the  bridge 
question,  out  of  a  possible  6,732.  Had  the  eligible 
voters  of  this  ward,  alone,  done  their  duty,  the  issue 
would  have  been  carried  at  the  time,  and  the  bridge 
would  now  be  in  operation. 

One  becomes  accustomed  to  exhibitions  of  municipal 
indifference  upon  matters  involving  questions  like  re 
form,  which,  though  they  are  not  really  abstract,  often 
seem  so  to  the  average  voter.  Reforms  are,  relatively 
at  least,  invisible  things.  But  the  Free  Bridge  is  not 
invisible.  Far  from  it!  There  it  stands  above  the 
stream,  a  grim,  gargantuan  joke,  for  every  man  to  see 
— a  tin  can  tied  to  a  city's  tail. 

In  writing  of  St.  Louis  I  feel,  somehow,  like  a  man 

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The    three   used    bridges    which    cross   the    Mississippi    River    at 
St.  Louis  are  privately  controlled   toll  bridges 


SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

who  has  been  at  a  delightful  house  party  where  people 
have  been  very  kind  to  him,  and  who,  when  he  goes 
away,  promulgates  unpleasant  truths  about  bad  plumb 
ing  in  the  house.  Yet,  of  course,  St.  Louis  is  a  public 
place,  to  which  I  \vent  with  the  avowed  purpose  of  writ 
ing  my  impressions.  The  reader  may  be  glad,  at 
this  point,  to  learn  that  some  of  my  impressions  are 
of  a  pleasant  nature.  But  before  I  reach  them  I 
must  rake  a  little  further  through  this  substance, 
which,  I  am  becoming  very  much  afraid,  resembles 
"muck." 

St.  Louis  has,  for  some  time,  been  involved  in  a  fight 
with  the  United  Railways  Company,  a  corporation  con 
trolling  the  street  car  system  of  the  city.  In  one  quar 
ter  I  \vas  informed  that  this  company  was  paying 
dividends  on  millions  of  watered  stock,  and  that  it  had 
been  reported  by  the  Public  Service  Commission  as 
earning  more  than  a  million  a  year  in  excess  of  a  rea 
sonable  return  on  its  investment.  In  another  quarter, 
while  it  was  not  denied  that  the  company  was  overbur 
dened  with  obligations  representing  much  more  than 
the  actual  value  of  the  present  system,  it  was  explained 
that  the  so-called  "water"  represented  the  cost  of  the 
early  horse-car  system,  discarded  on  the  advent  of  the 
cable  lines,  and  also  the  cost  of  the  cable  lines  which 
were,  in  turn,  discarded  for  the  trolley.  It  wras  fur 
thermore  contended  that,  in  the  days  before  the  forma 
tion  of  the  United  Railways  Company,  when  several 
companies  were  striving  for  territory,  the  street  rail- 

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roads  of  St.  Louis  were  overbuilt,  with  the  result  that 
much  money  was  sunk. 

In  an  article  on  St.  Louis,  recently  published  in 
"Collier's  Weekly,"  I  made  the  statement  that  the  street 
car  service  of  St.  Louis  was  as  bad  as  I  had  ever  seen; 
that  the  tracks  were  rough,  the  cars  run-down  and  dirty, 
and  that  an  antediluvian  heating  system  was  used, 
namely,  a  red-hot  stove  at  one  end  of  the  car,  giving 
but  small  comfort  to  those  far  removed  from  it,  and 
fairly  cooking  those  who  sat  near. 

This  statement  brought  some  protest  from  St.  Louis. 
Several  persons  wrote  to  me  saying  that  the  cars  were 
not  dirty,  that  only  a  few  of  them  were  heated  with 
stoves,  and  that  the  tracks  were  in  good  condition. 
With  one  of  these  correspondents,  Mr.  Walter  B. 
Stevens,  I  exchanged  several  letters.  I  informed  him 
that  I  had  ridden  in  five  different  cars,  that  all  five  were 
heated  as  mentioned,  that  they  were  dirty  and  needed 
painting,  and  that  I  recalled  distinctly  the  fact  that 
the  rail-joints  caused  a  continual  jarring  of  the 
car. 

Mr.  Stevens  replied  as  follows: 

"In  your  street  car  trip  to  the  southwestern  part  of  the 
city  you  saw  probably  the  worst  part  of  the  system. 
Some  of  the  lines,  notably  those  in  the  section  of  the 
city  mentioned  by  you,  have  not  been  brought  up  to  the 
standard  that  prevails  elsewhere.  I  have  traveled  on 
street  cars  in  most  of  the  large  cities  of  this  country, 
north  and  south,  and  according  to  my  observation,  the 

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SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

lines  in  the  central  part  of  St.  Louis,  extending  west 
ward,  are  not  surpassed  anywhere/' 

As  I  have  reason  to  know  that  Mr.  Stevens  is  an  ex 
ceedingly  fair-minded  gentleman,  I  am  glad  of  the  op 
portunity  to  print  his  statement  here.  I  must  add,  how 
ever,  that  I  think  a  street  car  system  on  which  a  stranger, 
taking  five  different  cars,  finds  them  all  heated  by  stoves, 
leaves  something  to  be  desired.  Let  me  say  further 
that  I  might  not  have  been  so  critical  of  the  St.  Louis 
street  railways  and  its  cars,  had  I  not  become  ac 
quainted,  a  short  time  before,  with  the  Twin  City  Rapid 
Transit  Company,  which  operates  the  street  railways 
of  Minneapolis  and  St.  Paul :  a  system  which,  as  a  casual 
observer,  I  should  call  the  most  perfect  of  its  kind  I 
have  seen  in  the  United  States. 


"What  is  the  matter  with  St.  Louis?"  I  inquired  of  a 
wide-awake  citizen  I  met. 

"Oh,  the  Drew  Question,"  he  suggested  with  a  smile. 

The  Drew  Question  ?"  I  repeated  blankly. 

"You  don't  know  about  that?  Well,  the  question  you 
asked  was  put  to  the  city,  some  years  ago,  by  Alderman 
Drew,  so  instead  of  asking  it  outright  any  more,  we  re 
fer  to  it  as  'the  Drew  Question/  Every  one  knows  what 
it  means." 

The  man  who  asks  that  question  in  St.  Louis  will  re 
ceive  a  wide  variety  of  answers. 

One  exceedingly  well-informed  gentleman  told  me 

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that  St.  Louis  had  the  "most  aggressive  minority"  he 
had  ever  seen.  "Start  any  movement  here,"  he  de 
clared,  "and,  whatever  it  may  be,  you  immediately  en 
counter  strong  objection." 

In  other  quarters  I  learned  of  something  called  "The 
Big  Cinch" — an  intangible,  reactionary  sort  of  dragon, 
said  to  be  built  of  big  business  men.  It  is  charged  that 
this  legendary  monster  has  put  the  quietus  upon  various 
enterprises,  including  the  construction  of  a  new  and 
first-class  hotel — something  which  St.  Louis  needs.  In 
still  other  quarters  I  was  informed  that  the  city's  long- 
established  wealth  had  placed  it  in  somewhat  the  posi 
tion  of  Detroit  before  the  days  of  the  automobile,  and 
that  much  of  the  money  and  many  of  the  big  business 
enterprises  were  controlled  by  elderly  men;  in  short, 
that  what  is  needed  is  young  blood,  or,  as  one  man  put 
it,  "a  few  important  funerals." 

"It  is  conservatism,"  explained  another.  "The  trou 
ble  with  St.  Louis  is  that  nobody  here  ever  goes  crazy." 
And  said  still  another :  "About  one-third  of  the  popula 
tion  of  St.  Louis  is  German.  It  is  German  lethargy  that 
holds  the  city  back." 

Whatever  truth  may  lurk  in  these  several  statements, 
I  do  not,  personally,  believe  in  the  last  one.  If  the  Ger 
mans  are  sometimes  stolid,  they  are  upon  the  other  hand 
honest,  thoughtful,  and  steady.  And  when  it  comes  to 
lethargy — well,  Chicago,  the  most  active  great  city  in 
the  country,  has  a  large  German  population.  And,  for 
the  matter  of  that,  so  has  Berlin !  Some  of  the  best  citi- 

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SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

zens  St.  Louis  has  are  Germans,  and  one  of  her  most  pub 
lic-spirited  and  nationally  distinguished  men  was  born  in 
Prussia — Mr.  Frederick  W.  Lehmann,  former  Solicitor 
General  of  the  United  States  and  ex-president  of  the 
American  Bar  Association.  Mr.  Lehmann  (who 
served  the  country  as  a  commissioner  in  the  cause 
of  peace  with  Mexico,  at  the  Niagara  Falls  conference) 
drew  up  a  city  charter  which  was  recommended  by  the 
Board  of  Freeholders  of  St.  Louis  in  1910.  This  char 
ter  was  defeated.  However,  another  charter,  embody 
ing  many  even  more  progressive  elements  than  those 
contained  in  the  charter  proposed  by  Mr.  Lehmann,  has 
lately  been  accepted  by  the  city,  and  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  earlier  proposals  paved  the  way  for  this 
one.  The  new  charter  had  not  been  passed  at  the  time 
of  my  visit.  The  St.  Louis  newspapers  wrhich  I  have 
seen  since  are,  ho\vever,  most  sanguine  in  their  prophe 
cies  as  to  what  will  be  accomplished  under  it.  All  seem 
to  agree  that  its  acceptance  marks  the  awakening  of  the 
city. 

German  emigration  to  St.  Louis  began  about  1820 
and  increased  at  the  time  of  the  rebellion  of  1848,  so 
that,  like  Milwaukee,  St.  Louis  has  to-day  a  very  strong 
German  flavor.  By  the  terms  of  the  city  charter  all 
ordinances  and  municipal  legal  advertising  are  printed 
in  both  English  and  German,  and  the  "Westliche  Post" 
of  St.  Louis,  a  German  newspaper  founded  by  the  late 
Emil  Pretorius  and  now  conducted  by  his  son,  is  a  pow 
erful  organ.  The  great  family  beer  halls  of  the  city 

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add  further  Teutonic  color,  and  the  Liederkranz  is,  I 
believe,  the  largest  club  in  the  city.  This  organization 
is  not  much  like  a  club  according  to  the  restricted  Eng 
lish  idea;  it  suggests  some  great,  genial  public  gather 
ing  place.  The  substantial  German  citizens  who  arrive 
here  of  a  Sunday  night,  when  the  cook  goes  out,  do  not 
come  alone,  nor  merely  with  their  sons,  but  bring  their 
entire  families  for  dinner,  including  the  mother,  the 
daughters,  and  the  little  children.  There  is  music,  of 
course,  and  great  contentment.  The  place  breathes  of 
substantiality,  democracy,  and  good  nature.  You  feel 
it  even  in  the  manner  of  the  waiters,  who,  being  first  of 
all  human  beings,  second,  Germans,  and  waiters  only  in 
the  third  place,  have  an  air  of  personal  friendliness  with 
those  they  serve. 

Aside  from  his  municipal  and  national  activities,  Mr. 
Lehmann  has  found  time  to  gather  in  his  home  one  of 
the  most  complete  collections  of  Dickens's  first  editions 
and  related  publications  to  be  found  in  the  whole  world. 
It  is,  indeed,  on  this  side — the  side  of  cultivation — that 
St.  Louis  is  most  truly  charming.  She  has  an  old,  ex 
clusive,  and  delightful  society,  and  a  widespread  and 
pleasantly  unostentatious  interest  in  esthetic  things.  In 
fact,  I  do  not  know  of  any  American  city,  to  which  St. 
Louis  may  with  justice  be  compared,  possessing  a  larger 
body  of  collectors,  nor  collections  showing  more  in 
dividual  taste.  The  most  important  private  collections 
in  the  city  are,  I  believe,  those  of  Mr.  William  K.  Bixby, 

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SOMNOLENT  ST.  LOUIS 

who  owns  a  great  number  of  valuable  paintings  by  old 
masters,  and  a  large  collection  of  rare  books  and  manu 
scripts.  As  a  book  collector,  Mr.  Bixby  is  widely  known 
throughout  the  country,  and  he  has  had,  if  I  mistake 
not,  the  honor  of  being  president  of  that  Chicago  club 
of  bibliolatrists,  known  as  the  "Dofobs,"  or  "damned 
old  fools  over  books." 

An  exhibition  of  paintings  owned  in  St.  Louis  is  held 
annually  in  the  St.  Louis  Museum  of  Art,  and  leaves  no 
doubt  as  to  the  genuineness  of  the  interest  of  St.  Louis 
citizens  in  painting.  Nor  can  any  one,  considering  the 
groups  of  canvases  loaned  to  the  museum  for  the  annual 
exhibition,  doubt  that  certain  art  collectors  in  St.  Louis 
(Mr.  Edward  A.  Faust,  for  example)  are  buying  not 
only  names  but  paintings. 

The  Art  Museum  is  less  accessible  to  the  general  citi 
zen  than  are  museums  in  some  other  cities.  Having 
been  originally  the  central  hall  of  the  group  of  buildings 
devoted  to  art  at  the  time  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
Exposition,  it  stands  in  that  part  of  Forest  Park  which 
was  formerly  the  Fair  ground.  Posed,  as  it  is,  upon  a 
hill,  in  a  commanding  and  conspicuous  position,  it  re 
veals,  somewhat  unfortunately,  the  fact  that  it  is  the 
isolated  fragment  of  a  former  group.  Nevertheless,  it 
must  take  a  high  place  among  the  secondary  art  mu 
seums  of  the  United  States.  For  despite  the  embarrass 
ment  caused  by  the  possession  of  a  good  deal  of  mediocre 
sculpture,  a  legacy  from  the  World's  Fair,  which  is 
packed  in  its  central  hall;  and  despite  the  inheritance, 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

from  twenty  or  twenty-five  years  since,  of  vapid  can 
vases  by  Bouguereau,  Gabriel  Max,  and  other  painters 
of  past  popularity,  whose  works  are  rapidly  coming  to 
be  known  for  what  they  are — despite  these  handicaps, 
the  museum  is  now  distinctly  in  step  with  the  march  of 
modern  art.  The  old  collection  is  being  weeded  out,  and 
good  judgment  is  being  shown  in  the  selection  of  new 
canvases.  Like  the  Albright  Gallery  in  Buffalo,  the  St. 
Louis  Museum  of  Art  is  rapidly  acquiring  works  by 
some  of  the  best  American  painters  of  to-day,  having 
purchased  within  the  last  four  or  five  years  canvases  by 
Redfield,  Loeb,  Symons,  Waugh,  Dearth,  Dougherty, 
Foster,  and  others. 

Another  building  saved  from  the  World's  Fair  is  the 
superb  central  hall  of  Washington  University,  a  red 
granite  structure  in  the  English  collegiate  style,  designed 
by  Cope  &  Stewardson.  The  dozen  or  more  buildings 
of  this  university  are  very  fine  in  their  harmony,  and 
are  pronounced  by  Baedeker  "certainly  the  most  suc 
cessful  and  appropriate  group  of  collegiate  buildings  in 
the  New  World." 

It  is  curious  to  note  in  this  connection  that  there  are 
eight  colleges  or  universities  in  the  United  States  in 
which  the  name  of  "Washington"  appears;  among  them, 
Washington  University  at  St.  Louis;  Washington  Col 
lege  at  Chestertown,  Md. ;  George  Washington  Univer 
sity  at  Washington,  D.  C. ;  Washington  State  College  at 
Pullman,  Wash.,  and  the  University  of  Washington  at 
Seattle. 

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CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  FINER  SIDE 

BEFORE  making  my  transcontinental  pilgrimage 
I  used  to  wonder,  sometimes,  just  where  the  line 
dividing  East  from  West  in  the  United  States 
might  be.  When  I  lived  in  Chicago,  and  went  out  to 
St.  Louis,  I  felt  that  I  was  going,  not  merely  in  a  west 
erly  direction,  but  that  I  was  actually  going  out  into  the 
"West."  I  knew,  of  course,  that  there  was  a  vast 
amount  of  "West"  lying  beyond  St.  Louis,  but  I  had  no 
real  conception — and  no  one  who  has  not  seen  it  can 
have — of  what  a  stupendous,  endless,  different  kind  of 
land  it  is.  St.  Louis  west  ?  It  is  not  west  at  all.  To  be 
sure,  it  is  the  frontier,  the  jumping-off  place,  but  it  is  no 
more  western  in  its  characteristics  than  the  city  of 
Boulogne  is  English  because  it  faces  England,  just 
across  the  way.  From  every  point  of  view  ex 
cept  that  of  geography,  Chicago  is  more  western 
than  St.  Louis.  For  Chicago  has  more  "wallop" 
than  St.  Louis,  and  "wallop"  is  essentially  a  western 
attribute.  "Wallop"  St.  Louis  has  not.  What  she 
has  is  civilization  and  the  eastern  spirit  of  laissez- 
faire.  And  that  of  St.  Louis  which  is  not  of  the 
east  is  of  the  south.  Her  society  has  a  strong  southern 

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flavor,  many  of  her  leading  families  having  come  orig 
inally  from  Kentucky  and  Virginia.  The  Southern 
"colonel"  type  is  to  be  found  there,  too — black,  broad- 
brimmed  hat,  frock  coat,  goatee,  and  all — and  there  is  a 
negro  population  big  enough  to  give  him  his  customary 
background. 

Much  negro  labor  is  employed  for  the  rougher  kind 
of  work;  colored  waiters  serve  in  the  hotels,  and  many 
families  employ  colored  servants.  As  is  usual  in  cities 
where  this  is  true,  the  accent  of  the  people  inclines  some 
what  to  be  southern.  Or,  perhaps,  it  is  a  blending  of 
the  accent  of  the  south  with  the  sharper  drawl  of  the 
west.  Then,  too,  I  encountered  there  men  bearing 
French  names  (which  are  pronounced  in  the  French 
manner,  although  the  city's  name  has  been  anglicized, 
being  pronounced  "Saint  Louiss")  who,  if  they  did  not 
speak  with  a  real  French  accent,  had,  at  least,  slight 
mannerisms  of  speech  which  were  unmistakably  of 
French  origin.  I  noted  down  a  number  of  French 
family  names  I  heard:  Chauvenet,  Papin,  Valle,  Des- 
loge,  De  Menil,  Lucas,  Pettus,  Guion,  Chopin,  Janis, 
Benoist,  Cabanne,  and  Chouteau — the  latter  family  de 
scended,  I  was  told,  from  Laclede  himself.  And  again, 
I  heard  such  names  as  Busch,  Lehmann,  Faust,  and 
Niedringhaus;  and  still  again  such  other  names  as  Kil- 
patrick,  Farrell,  and  O'Fallon — for  St.  Louis,  though  a 
Southern  city,  and  an  Eastern  city,  and  a  French  city, 
and  a  German  city,  by  being  also  Irish,  proves  herself 
American. 

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THE  FINER  SIDE 

It  is  in  all  that  has  to  do  with  family  life  that  St. 
Louis  comes  off  best.  She  has  miles  upon  miles  of  pros 
perous-looking,  middle-class  residence  streets,  and  the 
system  of  residence  "places"  in  her  more  fashionable 
districts  is  highly  characteristic.  These  "places"  are  in 
reality  long,  narrow  parkways,  with  double  drives, 
parked  down  the  center,  and  bordered  with  houses  at 
their  outer  margins.  The  oldest  of  them  is,  I  am  told, 
Benton  Place,  on  the  South  Side,  but  the  more  attractive 
ones  are  to  the  westward,  near  Forest  Park.  Of  these 
the  first  was  Vandeventer  Place,  which  still  contains 
some  of  the  most  pleasant  and  substantial  residences  of 
the  city,  and  it  may  be  added  that  while  some  of  the 
newer  "places"  have  more  recent  and  elaborate  houses 
than  those  on  Vandeventer  Place,  the  general  average  of 
recent  domestic  architecture  in  St.  Louis  is  behind  that 
of  many  other  cities.  Portland  Place  seemed,  upon  the 
whole,  to  have  the  best  group  of  modern  houses.  West 
moreland  and  Kingsbury  Places  also  have  agreeable 
homes.  But  Washington  Terrace  is  not  so  fortunate; 
its  houses,  though  they  plainly  indicate  liberal  expendi 
ture  of  money,  are  often  of  that  "catch-as-catch-can" 
kind  of  architecture  which  one  meets  with  but  too  fre 
quently  in  the  middle  west.  If  St.  Louis  is  western  in 
one  thing  more  than  another  it  is  the  architecture  of 
her  houses.  Not  that  they  lack  solidity  but  that  on  the 
average  they  are  not  to  be  compared,  architecturally, 
with  houses  of  corresponding  modernness  in  such  cities 
as  Chicago  or  Detroit.  The  more  I  see  of  other  cities 

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the  more,  indeed,  I  appreciate  the  new  domestic  archi 
tecture  of  Detroit.  And  I  cannot  help  feeling  that  it  is 
curious  that  St.  Louis  should  be  behind  Detroit  in  this 
particular  when  she  is,  as  a  city,  so  far  superior  in  her 
evident  understanding  and  love  of  art. 

Nevertheless,  St.  Louis  has  one  architect  whom  she 
cannot  honor  too  highly — Mr.  William  B.  Ittner,  who, 
as  a  designer  of  schools,  stands  unsurpassed. 

If  ever  I  have  seen  a  building  perfect  for  its  purpose, 
that  building  is  the  Frank  Louis  Soldan  High  School, 
designed  by  this  man.  It  is  the  last  word  in  schools;  a 
building  for  the  city  of  St.  Louis  to  be  proud  of,  and 
for  the  whole  country  to  rejoice  in.  It  has  everything  a 
school  can  have,  including  that  quality  rarest  of  all  in 
schools — sheer  beauty.  It  is  worth  a  whole  chapter  in 
itself,  from  its  great  auditorium,  which  is  like  a  very 
simple  opera  house,  seating  two  thousand  persons,  to 
its  tiled  lunch  rooms  with  their  "cafeteria"  service. 
An  architect  could  build  one  school  like  that,  it  seems  to 
me,  and  then  lie  down  and  die  content,  feeling  that  his 
work  wras  done.  But  Mr.  Ittner  apparently  is  not  satis 
fied  so  easily  as  I  should  be,  for  he  goes  gaily  on  build 
ing  other  schools.  If  there  is  n't  one  to  be  built  in  St. 
Louis  at  the  moment  (and  the  city  has  an  extraordinary 
number  of  fine  school  buildings),  he  goes  off  to  some 
other  city  and  puts  a  school  up  there.  And  for  every 
one  he  builds  he  ought  to  have  a  crown  of  gold. 

Mr.  John  Rush  Powell,  the  principal  of  the  high 
school,  was  so  good  as  to  take  my  companion  and  me 

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THE  FINER  SIDE 

over  the  building.  We  envied  Mr.  Powell  the  privilege 
of  being  housed  in  such  a  palace,  and  Mr.  Powell,  in  his 
turn,  tried  to  talk  temperately  about  the  wonders  of 
his  school,  and  was  so  polite  as  to  let  us  do  the  rav 
ing. 

Do  you  remember,  when  you  went  to  school,  the  long 
closet,  or  dressing  room,  where  you  used  to  hang  your 
coat  and  hat  ?  The  boys  and  girls  of  the  Soldan  School 
have  steel  lockers  in  a  sunlit  locker  room.  Do  you  re 
member  the  old  wooden  floors?  These  boys  and  girls 
have  wooden  floors  to  walk  on,  but  the  wood  is  quarter- 
sawed  oak,  and  it  is  laid  in  asphalt  over  concrete,  which 
makes  the  finest  kind  of  floor.  Do  you  remember  the 
ugly  old  school  building?  The  front  of  this  one  looks 
like  Hampden  Court  Palace,  brought  up  to  date.  Do 
you  remember  the  big  class-room  that  served  almost 
every  purpose?  This  school  has  separate  rooms  for 
everything — a  greenhouse  for  the  botanists,  great 
studios,  with  skylights,  for  those  who  study  art,  a  music 
hall,  and  private  offices,  beside  the  classrooms,  for  in 
structors.  Oh,  you  ought  to  see  this  school  yourself, 
and  learn  how  schools  have  changed!  You  ought  to 
see  the  domestic  science  kitchen  with  its  twenty-four 
gas  ranges  and  the  model  dining  room,  where  the  girls 
give  dinner  parties  for  their  parents;  the  sewing  room 
and  fitting  rooms,  and  the  laundries,  with  sanitary  equip 
ment  and  electric  irons — for  every  girl  who  takes  the 
domestic-science  course  must  know  how  to  do  fine 
laundry  work,  even  to  the  washing  of  flannels. 

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You  should  see  the  manual-training  shops,  and  the 
•business  college,  and  the  textile  work,  and  the  kilns  for 
pottery,  and  the  very  creditable  drawings  and  paintings 
of  the  art  students  (who  clearly  have  a  competent 
teacher — again  an  unusual  thing  in  schools),  and  the 
simple  beauty  of  the  corridors,  so  free  from  decoration, 
and  the  library — like  that  of  a  club — and  the  lavatories, 
as  perfect  as  those  in  fine  hotels,  and  the  pictures  on  the 
classroom  walls — good  prints  of  good  things,  like 
Whistler's  portrait  of  his  mother,  instead  of  the  old 
hideosities  of  Washington  and  Longfellow  and  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes,  which  used  to  hang  on  classroom  walls 
in  our  school  days.  Oh,  it  is  good  to  merely  breathe  the 
air  of  such  a  school — and  why  should  n't  it  be,  since  the 
air  is  washed,  and  screened,  and  warmed,  and  fanned 
out  to  the  rooms  and  corridors  ?  Just  think  of  that  one 
thing,  and  then  try  to  remember  how  schools  used  to 
smell — that  rather  zoological  odor  of  dirty  little  boys 
and  dirty  little  slates.  That  was  one  thing  which  struck 
me  very  forcibly  about  this  school :  it  did  n't  smell  like 
one.  Yet,  until  I  went  there,  I  should  have  wagered 
that  if  I  were  taken  blindfold  to  a  school,  led  inside,  and 
allowed  a  single  whiff  of  it,  I  should  immediately  detect 
the  place  for  what  it  was.  Ah,  memories  of  other  days ! 
Ah,  sacred  smells  of  childhood!  Can  it  be  that  the 
school  smell  has  gone  forever  from  the  earth — that  it 
has  vanished  with  our  youth — that  the  rising  generation 
may  not  know  it?  There  is  but  little  sadness  in  the 
thought. 

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THE  FINER  SIDE 

Having  thus  dilated  upon  the  oldtime  smell  of 
schools,  I  find  myself  drifting,  perhaps  through  an  as 
sociation  of  ideas,  to  another  subject — that  of  furs;  raw 
furs. 

The  firm  of  Funsten  Brothers  &  Co.  have  made  St. 
Louis  the  largest  primary  fur  market  in  the  world. 
They  operate  a  fur  exchange  which,  though  a  private 
business,  is  conducted  somewhat  after  the  manner  of  a 
produce  exchange.  That  is  to  say,  the  sales  are  not 
open  to  all  buyers,  but  to  about  thirty  men  who  are,  in 
effect,  "members,"  it  being  required  that  a  member  be  a 
fur  dealer  with  a  place  of  business  in  St.  Louis.  These 
men  are  jobbers,  and  they  sell  in  turn  to  the  manufac 
turers. 

Funsten  Brothers  &  Co.  work  direct  with  trappers, 
and  are  in  correspondence,  I  am  informed,  with  between 
700,000  and  800,000  persons,  engaged  in  trapping  and 
shipping  furs,  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  Their  business 
has  been  considerably  increased  of  late  years  by  the  in 
stallation  of  a  trappers'  information  bureau  and  supply 
department  for  the  accommodation  of  those  who  send 
them  furs,  and  also  by  the  marketing  of  artificial  animal 
baits.  In  this  way,  and  further  by  making  it  a  rule  to 
send  checks  in  payment  for  furs  received  from  trappers, 
on  the  same  day  shipments  arrive,  this  company  has 
built  up  for  itself  an  enormous  good  will  at  the  original 
sources  of  supply. 

The  furs  come  from  every  State  in  the  Union,  from 
every  Province  in  Canada,  and  from  Alaska,  being 

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shipped  in,  during  the  trapping  season,  at  the  rate  of 
about  two  thousand  lots  a  day,  these  lots  containing  any 
where  from  five  to  five  hundred  pelts  each. 

The  lots  are  sorted,  arranged  in  batches  according  to 
quality,  and  auctioned  off  at  sales,  which  are  held  three 
days  a  week.  Even  Massachusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Flor 
ida,  and  Texas  supply  furs,  but  the  furs  from  the  north 
are  in  general  the  most  valuable.  This  is  not  true,  how 
ever,  of  muskrat,  the  best  of  which  comes  from  the  cen 
tral  and  eastern  States. 

The  sales  are  conducted  in  the  large  hall  of  the  ex 
change,  where  the  lots  of  furs  are  displayed  in  great 
piles.  The  skins  are  handled  in  the  raw  state,  having 
been  merely  removed  from  the  carcass  and  dried  before 
shipment,  with  the  result  that  the  floor  of  the  exchange 
is  made  slippery  by  animal  fats,  and  that  the  olfactory 
organs  encounter  smells  not  to  be  matched  in  any  zoo — 
or  school — the  blended  fragrance  of  raccoon,  mink, 
opossum,  muskrat,  ermine,  ringtail,  house  cat,  wolf, 
red  fox,  gray  fox,  cross  fox,  swift  fox,  silver  fox, 
badger,  otter,  beaver,  lynx,  marten,  bear,  wolverine, 
fisher — a  great  orchestra  of  odors,  in  which  the  "air" 
is  carried  most  competently,  most  unqualifiedly,  by  that 
master  virtuoso  of  mephitic  redolence,  the  skunk. 

I  was  told  that  about  sixty-five  per  cent,  of  all  North 
American  furs  pass  through  this  exchange;  also  I  re 
ceived  the  rather  surprising  information  that  the  great 
est  number  of  skins  furnished  by  this  continent  comes 
from  within  a  radius  of  five  hundred  miles  of  St.  Louis. 

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It  was  in  this  Fur  Exchange  that  the  first  auction  of 
government  seal  skins  ever  held  by  the  United  States 
on  its  own  territory,  occurred  last  year.  Before  that 
time  it  had  been  the  custom  of  the  government  to  send 
Alaskan  sealskins  to  Europe,  where  they  were  cured 
and  dyed.  Such  of  these  skins  as  were  returned  to  the 
United  States,  after  having  undergone  curing  and  dye 
ing,  came  back  under  a  duty  of  20  per  cent.,  or  more  re 
cently,  by  an  increase  in  the  tariff — 30  per  cent.  And 
all  but  a  very  few  of  the  skins  did  come  back.  It  was  by 
action  of  Secretary  of  Commerce  Redfield  that  the  seal 
sale  was  transferred  from  London  to  St.  Louis,  and  a 
member  of  the  firm  of  Funsten  Brothers  &  Co.  informed 
me  that  the  ultimate  result  will  be  that  seal  coats  now 
costing,  say,  $1,200,  may  be  bought  for  about  $400  three 
years  hence,  when  the  seals  will  no  longer  be  protected 
according  to  the  present  law. 

Some  interesting  information  with  regard  to  sealing 
was  published  in  the  St.  Louis  "Republic"  at  the  time  of 
the  sale.  Quoting  Mr.  Philip  B.  Fouke,  president  of  the 
Funsten  Co.,  the  "Republic"  says : 

"Under  the  present  policy  of  the  Government  the 
United  States  will  get  the  dyeing,  curing,  and  manufac 
turing  establishments  from  London,  Amsterdam,  Nizhni 
Novgorod,  and  other  great  centers.  The  price  of  seal 
skins  will  be  reduced  two-thirds  to  the  wearer.  Seals 
have  been  protected  for  the  past  two  years,  and  will  be 
protected  for  three  years  more,  but  during  the  period  of 
protection  it  is  necessary  for  the  Government  hunters 

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to  kill  some  of  the  'bachelor  seals' — males,  without 
mates,  who  fight  with  other  male  seals  for  the  possession 
of  the  females,  destroying  the  young,  and  causing  much 
trouble.  Also  a  certain  amount  of  seal  meat  must  go  to 
the  natives  for  food. 

"Each  female  produces  but  one  pup  a  year,  and  each 
male  demands  from  twenty  to  one  hundred  females. 
Fights  between  males  for  the  possession  of  the  females 
are  fearful  combats. 

"In  addition  to  protecting  the  seals  on  the  Pribilof 
Islands,  the  United  States  has  entered  into  an  agree 
ment  with  Japan,  Russia,  and  England,  that  there  shall 
be  no  sealing  in  the  open  seas  for  fifteen  years.  This 
open  sea,  or  pelagic  sealing  did  great  harm.  Only  the 
females  leave  the  land,  where  they  can  be  protected,  and 
go  down  to  the  open  sea.  Consequently  the  poachers 
got  many  females,  destroying  the  young  seals  as  well  as 
the  mothers,  cutting  off  the  source  of  supply,  and  leav 
ing  a  preponderance  of  'bachelors/  or  useless  males." 

What  a  chance  for  the  writer  of  sex  stories!  Why 
dally  with  the  human  race  when  seals  are  living  such  a 
lurid  life?  Here  is  a  brand-new  field:  The  heroine  a 
soft-eyed  female  with  a  hide  like  velvet ;  the  hero  a  dash 
ing,  splashing  male.  Sweet  communions  on  the  rocks 
at  sunset,  and  long  swims  side  by  side.  But  one  night 
on  the  cliffs,  beneath  the  moon  comes  the  blond  beast  of 
a  bachelor,  a  seal  absolutely  unscrupulous  and  of 
the  lowest  animal  impulses.  Then  the  climax — the  Jack 
London  stuff:  the  fight  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff;  the  cry, 

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THE  FINER  SIDE 

the  body  hurtling  to  the  rocks  below.     And,  of  course, 
a  happy  ending — love  on  a  cake  of  ice. 

Old  John  Jacob  Astor,  founder  of  the  Astor  fortune, 
was  a  partner  in  the  American  Fur  Company  of  St. 
Louis  of  which  Pierre  Chouteau  was  president.  A  let 
ter  written  to  Chouteau  by  Astor  just  before  his  retire 
ment  from  the  fur  business  gives  as  the  reason  for  his 
withdrawal  the  following: 

I  very  much  fear  beaver  will  not  sell  very  well  very 
soon  unless  very  fine.  It  appears  that  they  make  hats 
of  silk  in  place  of  beaver. 

Beaver  was  at  that  time  the  most  valuable  skin,  and 
had  been  used  until  then  for  the  making  of  tall  hats ;  but 
the  French  were  beginning  to  make  silk  hats,  and  Astor 
believed  that  in  that  fact  was  presaged  the  downfall  of 
the  beaver  trade. 


Club  life  in  St.  Louis  is  very  highly  developed.  There 
are  of  course  the  usual  clubs  which  one  expects  to  find 
in  every  large  city:  The  St.  Louis  Club,  a  solid  old  or 
ganization  ;  the  University  Club,  and  a  fine  new  Country 
Club,  large  and  well  designed.  Also  there  is  a  Racquet 
Club,  an  agreeable  and  very  live  institution  now  holding 
the  national  championship  in  double  racquets,  which  is 
vested  in  the  team  of  Davis  and  Wear.  The  Davis  of 
this  pair  is  Dwight  F.  Davis,  an  exceedingly  active  and 
able  young  man  who,  aside  from  many  other  interests, 

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is  a  member  of  the  City  Plan  Commission,  commissioner 
in  charge  of  the  very  excellent  parks  of  St.  Louis,  and 
giver  of  the  famous  Davis  Cup,  emblematic  of  the 
world's  team  tennis  championship. 

But  the  characteristic  club  note  of  St.  Louis  is  struck 
by  the  very  small,  exclusive  clubs.  One  is  the  Floris 
sant  Valley  Country  Club,  with  a  pleasant,  simple  club 
house  and  a  very  charming  membership.  But  the  most 
famous  little  club  of  the  city,  and  one  of  the  most  famous 
in  the  United  States,  is  the  Log  Cabin  Club.  I  do  not 
believe  that  in  the  entire  country  there  is  another  like 
it.  The  club  is  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city,  and  has  its 
own  golf  course.  Its  house  is  an  utterly  unostentatious 
frame  building  with  a  dining  room  containing  a  single 
table  at  which  all  the  members  sit  at  meals  together,  like 
one  large  family.  The  membership  limit  is  twenty-five, 
and  the  list  has  never  been  completely  filled.  There  were 
twenty-one  members,  I  was  told,  at  the  time  we  were 
there,  and  besides  being,  perhaps,  the  most  prominent  men 
in  the  city,  these  gentlemen  are  all  intimates,  so  that  the 
club  has  an  air  of  delightful  informality  which  is  hardly 
equaled  in  any  other  club  I  know.  The  family  spirit  is 
further  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  no  checks  are  signed, 
the  expense  of  operation  being  divided  equally  among 
the  members.  Here  originated  the  "Log  Cabin  game" 
of  poker,  which  is  now  known  nationally  in  the  most  ex 
alted  poker  circles.  I  should  like  to  explain  this  game 
to  you,  telling  you  all  the  hands,  and  how  to  bet  on  them. 
but  after  an  evening  of  practical  instruction,  I  came 

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THE  FINER  SIDE 

away  quite  baffled.  Missouri  is,  you  know,  a  poker 
State.  Ordinary  poker,  as  played  in  the  east,  is  a  game 
too  simple,  too  childlike,  for  the  highly  specialized 
Missouri  poker  mind.  I  played  poker  twice  in  Mis 
souri — that  is,  I  tried  to  play — but  I  might  as  well  have 
tried  to  juggle  with  the  lightnings  of  the  gods.  No  man 
has  the  least  conception  of  that  game  until  he  goes  out 
to  Missouri.  There  it  is  not  merely  a  casual  pastime; 
it  is  a  rite,  a  sacrament,  a  magnificent  expression  of  a 
people.  The  Log  Cabin  game  is  a  thing  of  "kilters," 
skip-straights,  around-the-corner  straights,  and  other 
complications.  Three  of  a  kind  is  very  nearly  worth 
less.  Throw  it  away  after  the  draw  if  you  like,  pay  a 
dollar  and  get  a  brand-new  hand. 

But  those  are  some  simple  little  points  to  be  picked  up 
in  an  evening's  play,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  simple  little 
points  of  such  a  game  is  worse  than  worthless — it  is  ex 
pensive.  To  really  learn  the  Log  Cabin  game,  you  must 
give  up  your  business,  your  dancing,  and  your  home 
life,  move  out  to  St.  Louis,  cultivate  Log  Cabin  mem 
bers  (who  are  the  high  priests  of  poker)  and  play  with 
them  until  your  family  fortune  has  been  painlessly  ex 
tracted.  And  however  great  the  fortune,  it  is  a  small 
price  to  pay  for  such  adept  instruction.  When  it  is 
gone  you  will  still  fall  short  of  ordinary  Missouri  poker, 
and  will  be  as  a  mere  babe  in  the  hands  of  a  Log  Cabin 
member,  but  you  will  be  absolutely  sure  of  winning, 
anywhere  outside  the  State. 

It  seems  logical  that  the  city,  which  is  beyond  doubt 

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the  poker  center  of  the  universe,  should  also  have  at 
tained  to  eminence  in  drinks.  It  was  in  St.  Louis  that 
two  great  drinks  came  into  being.  In  the  old  days  of 
straight  whisky,  the  term  for  three  fingers  of  red 
liquor  in  a  whisky  glass  was  a  "ball."  But  there  came 
from  Austria  a  man  named  Enno  Sanders,  who  estab 
lished  a  bottling  works  in  St.  Louis,  and  manufactured 
seltzer.  St.  Louis  liked  the  seltzer  and  presently  it  be 
came  the  practice  to  add  a  little  of  the  bubbling  water 
to  the  "ball."  This  necessitated  a  taller  glass,  so  men 
began  to  call  for  a  "high  ball." 

The  weary  traveler  may  be  glad  to  know  that  the 
highball  has  not  been  discontinued  in  St.  Louis. 

Another  drink  which  originated  in  St.  Louis  is  the 
gin  rickey.  Colonel  Rickey  was  born  in  Hannibal,  Mo., 
of  which  town  I  shall  write  presently.  Later  he  moved 
to  St.  Louis  and  invented  the  famous  rickey,  which  im 
mortalized  his  name — preserving  it,  as  it  were,  in  al 
cohol.  The  drink  was  first  served  in  a  bar  opposite  the 
old  Southern  Hotel — a  hotel  which,  by  the  way,  I  re 
gretted  to  see  standing  empty  and  deserted  at  the  time 
of  my  last  visit,  for,  in  its  prime,  it  was  a  hotel  among 
hotels. 

I  have  tried  to  lead  gradually,  effectively  to  a  climax. 
From  clubs,  which  are  pleasant,  I  progressed  to  poker, 
which  is  pleasanter ;  from  poker  I  stepped  ahead  to  high 
balls  and  gin  rickeys.  And  now  I  am  prepared  to  reach 
my  highest  altitude.  I  intend  to  tell  the  very  nicest  thing 
about  St.  Louis.  And  the  nicest  thing  about  St.  Louis 

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THE  FINER  SIDE 

is  the  nicest  thing  that  there  can  be  about  a  place. 

It  discounts  primitive  street  cars,  an  ill-set  railway 
station,  and  an  unfinished  bridge.  It  sinks  the  parks, 
the  botanical  gardens,  the  art  museum  into  comparative 
oblivion.  Small  wonder  that  St.  Louis  seems  to  ignore 
her  minor  weaknesses  when  she  excels  in  this  one  thing 
— as  she  must  know  she  does. 

The  nicest  thing  about  St.  Louis  is  St.  Louis  girls. 

In  the  first  place,  fashionable  young  women  in  St. 
Louis  are  quite  as  gratifying  to  the  eye  as  women  any 
where.  In  the  second  place,  they  have  unusual  poise. 
This  latter  quality  is  very  striking,  and  it  springs,  I 
fancy,  from  the  town's  conservatism  and  solidity.  The 
young  girls  and  young  men  of  the  St.  Louis  social  group 
have  grown  up  together,  as  have  their  parents  and 
grandparents  before  them.  They  give  one  the  feeling 
that  they  are  somehow  rooted  to  the  place,  as  no  New 
Yorker  is  rooted  to  New  York.  The  social  fabric  of 
St.  Louis  changes  little.  The  old  families  live  in  the 
houses  they  have  always  lived  in,  instead  of  moving 
from  apartment  to  apartment  every  year  or  two.  One 
does  not  feel  the  nervous  tug  of  social  and  financial 
straining,  of  that  eternal  overreaching  which  one  senses 
always  in  New  York. 

One  day  at  luncheon  I  found  myself  between  two  very 
lovely  creatures — neither  of  them  over  twenty-two  or 
twenty- three ;  both  of  them  endowed  with  the  aplomb  of 
older,  more  experienced,  women — who  endeared  them 
selves  to  me  by  talking  critically  about  the  works  of 

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Meredith — and  Joseph  Conrad — and  Leonard  Merrick. 
Fancy  that !  Fancy  their  being  pretty  girls  yet  having 
worth-while  things  to  say — and  about  those  three  men ! 

And  when  the  conversation  drifted  away  from  books 
to  the  topic  which  my  companion  and  I  call  "life  stuff," 
and  when  I  found  them  adept  also  in  that  field,  my  ap 
preciation  of  St.  Louis  became  boundless. 

It  just  occurs  to  me  that,  in  publishing  the  fact  that 
St.  Louis  girls  have  brains  I  may  have  unintentionally 
done  them  an  unkindness. 

Once  I  asked  a  young  English  bachelor  to  my  house 
for  a  week-end. 

"I  want  you  to  come  this  week,"  I  said,  "because  the 
prettiest  girl  I  know  will  be  there." 

"Delighted,"  he  replied. 

"She  's  a  most  unusual  girl,"  I  went  on,  "for,  besides 
being  a  dream  of  loveliness,  she  's  clever." 

"Oh,"  he  said,  "if  she  's  clever,  let  me  come  some  other 
time.  I  don't  like  'em  clever.  I  like  'em  pretty  and 
stupid." 


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CHAPTER  XIX 
HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

IF  black  slaves  are  no  longer  bought  and  sold  there, 
if  the  river  trade  has  dwindled,  if  the  railroad  and 
the  factory  have  come,  bringing  a  larger  popula 
tion  with  them,  if  the  town  now  has  a  hundred-thou 
sand-dollar  city  hall,  a  country  club,  and  "fifty-six  pas 
senger  trains  daily/'  it  is,  at  all  events,  a  pleasure  to 
record  the  fact  that  Hannibal,  Missouri,  retains  to-day 
that  look  of  soft  and  shambling  picturesqueness  suitable 
to  an  old  river  town,  and  essential  to  the  "St.  Peters 
burg"  of  fiction — the  perpetual  dwelling  place  of  those 
immortal  boys,  Tom  Sawyer  and  Huckleberry  Finn. 

Should  this  characterization  of  the  town  fail  to  meet 
with  the  approval  of  the  Hannibal  Commercial  Club,  I 
regret  it,  for  I  honor  the  Commercial  Club  because  of 
its  action  toward  the  preservation  of  a  thing  so  uncom 
mercial  as  the  boyhood  home  of  Mark  Twain.  But, 
after  all,  the  club  must  remember  that,  in  its  creditable 
effort  to  build  up  a  newer  and  finer  Hannibal,  a  Hanni 
bal  of  brick  and  granite,  it  is  running  counter  to  the 
sentimental  interests  of  innumerable  persons  who, 
though  most  of  them  have  never  seen  the  old  town  and 
never  will,  yet  think  of  it  as  given  to  them  by  Mark 
Twain,  with  a  peculiar  tenderness,  as  though  it  were  a 
Tom  Sawyer  or  Huck  Finn  among  the  cities — a  ragged, 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

happy  boy  of  a  town,  which  ought  never,  never  to  grow 
up. 

There  is  no  more  charming  way  of  preserving  the 
memory  of  an  artist  than  through  the  preservation  of 
the  house  in  which  he  lived,  and  that  is  especially  true 
where  the  artist  was  a  literary  man  and  where  the  house 
has  figured  in  his  writings.  What  memorial  to  Thomas 
Bailey  Aldrich,  for  example,  could  equal  the  one  in 
Portsmouth,  N.  H.,  where  is  preserved  the  house  in 
which  the  "Bad  Boy"  of  the  "Diary"  used  to  live,  even 
to  the  furniture  and  the  bedroom  wall  paper  mentioned 
in  the  book?  And  what  monuments  to  Washington 
Irving  could  touch  quite  the  note  that  is  touched  by  that 
old  hoiise  in  Tarrytown,  N.  Y.,  or  that  other  old  house  in 
Irving  Place,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  where  the  Au 
thors1  League  of  America  now  has  its  headquarters? 

With  the  exception  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  I  do  not 
know  of  a  community  so  completely  dominated  by  the 
memory  of  a  great  man  of  letters  as  is  the  city  of  Han 
nibal  by  the  memory  of  Mark  Twain.  There  is,  indeed, 
a  curious  resemblance  to  be  traced  between  the  two 
towns.  I  don't  mean  a  physical  resemblance,  for  no 
places  could  be  less  alike  than  the  garden  town  where 
Shakespeare  lived  and  the  pathetic  wooden  village  of 
the  early  west  in  which  nine  years  of  Mark  Twain's 
boyhood  were  spent.  The  resemblance  is  only  in  the 
majestic  shadows  cast  over  them  by  their  great  men. 

Thus,  the  hotel  in  Stratford  is  called  The  Shakespeare 
Hotel,  while  that  in  Hannibal  is  The  Mark  Twain. 

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HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

Stratford  has  the  house  in  which  Shakespeare  was  born ; 
Hannibal  the  house  in  which  Mark  Twain  lived — the 
house  of  Tom  Sawyer.  Stratford  has  the  cottage  of 
Anne  Hathaway;  Hannibal  that  of  Becky  Thatcher. 
And  Hannibal  has,  furthermore,  one  possession  which 
lovers  of  the  delightful  Becky  will  hope  may  long  be 
spared  to  it — it  possesses,  in  the  person  of  Mrs.  Laura 
Hawkins  Frazer,  who  is  now  matron  of  the  Home  for 
the  Friendless,  the  original  of  Becky. 


It  is  said  that  a  memorial  tablet,  intended  to  mark 
the  birthplace  of  Eugene  Field  in  -St.  Louis,  was  placed, 
not  only  upon  the  wrong  house,  but  upon  a  house  in  the 
wrong  street.  Mark  Twain  unveiled  the  tablet;  one 
can  fancy  the  spirits  of  these  two  Missouri  literary  men 
meeting  somewhere  and  smiling  together  over  that. 
But  if  the  shade  of  Mark  Twain  should  undertake  to 
chaff  that  of  the  poet  upon  the  fact  that  mortals  had 
erred  as  to  the  location  of  his  birthplace,  the  shade  of 
Field  would  not  be  able  to  retort  in  kind,  for — thanks 
partly  to  the  fact  that  Mark  Twain  was  known  for  a 
genius  while  he  was  yet  alive,  and  partly  to  the  inde 
fatigable  labors  of  his  biographer,  Albert  Bigelow 
Paine — a  vast  fund  of  accurate  information  has  been 
preserved,  covering  the  life  of  the  great  Missourian, 
from  the  time  of  his  birth  in  the  little  hamlet  of  Florida, 
Mo.,  to  his  death  in  Reading,  Conn.  No;  if  the  shade 
of  Field  should  wish  to  return  the  jest,  it  would  prob- 

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ably  call  the  humorist's  attention  to  a  certain  memorial 
tablet  in  the  Mark  Twain  house  in  Hannibal.  But  of 
that  presently. 

I  have  said  that  the  Commercial  Club  honored  Mark 
Twain's  memory.  That  is  true.  But  the  Commercial 
Club  would  not  be  a  Commercial  Club  if  it  did  not  also 
wish  the  visitor  to  take  into  consideration  certain  other 
matters.  In  effect  it  says  to  him :  "Yes,  indeed,  Mark 
Twain  spent  the  most  important  part  of  his  boyhood 
here.  But  we  wish  you  to  understand  that  Hannibal  is 
a  busy,  growing  town.  We  have  the  cheapest  electric 
power  in  the  Mississippi  Valley.  We  offer  free  fac 
tory  sites.  We — " 

"Yes,"  you  say,  "but  where  is  the  Mark  Twain 
house?" 

"Oh — "  says  Hannibal,  catching  its  breath.  "Go 
right  on  up  Main  to  Hill  Street ;  you  '11  find  it  just  around 
the  corner.  Any  one  will  point  it  out  to  you.  There  's 
a  bronze  tablet  in  the  wall.  But  put  this  little  pamphlet 
in  your  pocket.  It  tells  all  about  our  city.  You  can 
read  it  at  your  leisure." 

You  take  the  pamphlet  and  move  along  up  Main 
Street.  And  if  there  is  a  sympathetic  native  with  you 
he  will  stop  you  at  the  corner  of  Main  and  Bird — they 
call  it  Wildcat  Corner — and  point  out  a  little  wooden 
shanty  adjoining  a  near-by  alley,  where,  it  is  said,  Mark 
Twain's  father,  John  Marshall  Clemens,  had  his  office 
when  he  was  Justice  of  the  Peace — the  same  office  in 
which  Samuel  Clemens  in  his  boyhood  saw  the  corpse 

240 


\\'e  caine  upon  the  "Mark  Twain  House"  .  .  .  And  to  think  that, 
wretched  as  this  place  was,  the  Clemens  family  were  forced  to  leave  it 
for  a  time  because  they  were  too  poor  to  live  there ! 


HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

lying  on  the  floor,  by  moonlight,  as  recounted  in  "The 
Innocents  Abroad." 

It  was  at  Wildcat  Corner,  too,  that  the  boys  con 
ducted  that  famous  piece  of  high  finance:  trading  off 
the  green  watermelon,  which  they  had  stolen,  for  a  ripe 
one,  on  the  allegation  that  the  former  had  been  pur 
chased. 

Also  near  the  corner  stands  the  building  in  which 
Joseph  Ament  had  the  office  of  his  newspaper,  the 
"Missouri  Courier,"  where  young  Sam  Clemens  first 
went  to  work  as  an  apprentice,  doing  errands  and  learn 
ing  to  set  type;  and  there  are  many  other  old  buildings 
having  some  bearing  on  the  history  of  the  Clemens 
family,  including  one  at  the  corner  of  Main  and  Hill 
Streets,  in  the  upper  story  of  which  the  family  lived  for 
a  time,  a  building  somewhat  after  the  Greek  pattern  so 
prevalent  throughout  the  south  in  the  early  days.  Once, 
when  he  revisited  Hannibal  after  he  had  become  fa 
mous,  Mark  Twain  stopped  before  that  building  and 
told  Mr.  George  A.  Mahan  that  he  remembered  when 
it  was  erected,  and  that  at  the  time  the  fluted  pilasters 
on  the  front  of  it  constituted  his  idea  of  reckless  ex 
travagance — that,  indeed,  the  ostentation  of  them 
startled  the  whole  town. 

Turning  into  Bird  Street  and  passing  the  old  Pavey 
Hotel,  we  came  upon  the  "Mark  Twain  House,"  a  tiny 
box  of  a  cottage,  its  sagging  front  so  taken  up  with  five 
windows  and  a  door  that  there  is  barely  room  for  the 
little  bronze  plaque  which  marks  the  place.  At  one  side 

241 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

is  an  alley  running  back  to  the  house  of  Huckleberry 
Finn,  on  the  next  street  (Huck,  as  Paine  tells  us,  was 
really  a  boy  named  Tom  Blankenship),  and  in  that  alley 
stood  the  historic  fence  which  young  Sam  Clemens 
cajoled  the  other  boys  into  whitewashing  for  him,  as 
related  in  "Tom  Sawyer." 

Inside  the  house  there  is  little  to  be  seen.  It  is  oc 
cupied  now  by  a  custodian  who  sells  souvenir  post  cards, 
and  has  but  few  Mark  Twain  relics  to  show — some 
photographs  and  autographs;  nothing  of  importance. 
But,  despite  that,  I  got  a  real  sensation  as  I  stood  in 
the  little  parlor,  hardly  larger  than  a  good-sized  closet, 
and  realized  that  in  that  miserable  shanty  grew  up  the 
wild,  barefoot  boy  who  has  since  been  called  "the  great 
est  Missourian"  and  "America's  greatest  literary  man," 
and  that  in  and  about  that  place  he  gathered  the  im 
pressions  and  had  the  adventures  which,  at  the  time,  he 
himself  never  dreamed  would  be  made  by  him  into 
books — much  less  books  that  would  be  known  as  classics. 

In  the  front  room  of  the  cottage  a  memorial  tablet  is 
to  be  seen.  It  is  a  curious  thing.  At  the  top  is  the 
following  inscription: 

THIS  BUILDING  PRESENTED  TO  THE 

CITY    OF    HANNIBAL,, 

MAY    7,    1912, 

BY 

MR.    AND    MRS.    GEORGE   A.    MAHAN 

AS   A    MEMORIAL   TO 

MARK    TWAIN 

242 


HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

Beneath  the  legend  is  a  portrait  bust  of  the  author  in 
has  relief.  At  the  bottom  of  the  tablet  is  another  in 
scription.  From  across  the  room  I  saw  that  it  was 
set  off  in  quotation  marks,  and  assuming,  of  course,  that 
it  was  some  particularly  suitable  extract  from  the  works 
of  the  most  quotable  of  all  Americans,  I  stepped  across 
and  read  it.  This  is  what  it  said: 

"MARK  TWAIN'S  LIFE  TEACHES  THAT 
POVERTY  IS  AN  INCENTIVE  RATHER 
THAN  A  BAR:  AND  THAT  ANY  BOY, 

HOWEVER  HUMBLE  HIS  BIRTH  AND 
SURROUNDINGS,  MAY  BY  HONESTY 
AND  INDUSTRY  ACCOMPLISH  GREAT 


THINGS." 


— GEORGE  A.  MAHAN. 


That  inscription  made  me  think  of  many  things.  It 
made  me  think  of  Napoleon's  inscription  on  the  statue 
of  Henri  IV,  and  of  Judge  Thatcher's  talk  with  Tom 
Sawyer,  in  the  Sunday  school,  and  of  Mr.  Walters,  the 
Sunday  school  superintendent,  in  the  same  book,  and  of 
certain  moral  lessons  drawn  by  Andrew  Carnegie. 
And  not  the  least  thing  of  which  it  made  me  think  was 
the  mischievous,  shiftless,  troublesome,  sandy-haired 
young  rascal  who  hated  school  and  Sunday  school  and 
yet  became  the  more  than  honest,  more  than  industrious 
man,  commemorated  there. 

If  I  did  not  feel  the  inspiration  of  that  place  while 
considering  the  tablet,  the  back  yard  gave  me  real  de- 

243 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

light.  There  were  the  old  outhouses,  the  old  back  stair, 
the  old  back  fence,  and  the  little  window  looking  down 
on  them — the  window  of  Tom  Sawyer,  beneath  which, 
in  the  gloaming,  Huckleberry  Finn  made  catcalls  to 
summon  forth  his  fellow  bucaneer.  And  here,  be 
low  the  window,  was  the  place  where  Pamela  Clemens, 
Sam's  sister,  the  original  of  Cousin  Mary  in  "Tom 
Sawyer/'  had  her  candy  pull  on  that  evening  when  a 
boy,  in  his  undershirt,  came  tumbling  from  above. 

And  to  think  that,  wretched  as  this  place  was,  the 
Clemens  family  were  forced  to  leave  it  for  a  time  be 
cause  they  were  too  poor  to  live  there!  Of  a  certainty 
Mark  Twain's  early  life  was  as  squalid  as  his  later  life 
was  rich.  However,  it  was  always  colorful — he  saw 
to  that,  straight  through  from  the  barefoot  days  to 
those  of  the  white  suits,  the  Oxford  gown,  and  the 
European  courts. 

Not  far  back  of  the  house  rises  the  "Cardiff  Hill"  of 
the  stories;  in  reality,  Holliday's  Hill,  so  called  because 
long  ago  there  lived,  up  at  the  top,  old  Mrs.  Holliday, 
who  burned  a  lamp  in  her  window  every  night  as  a  mark 
for  river  pilots  to  run  by.  It  was  down  that  hill  that 
the  boys  rolled  the  stones  which  startled  churchgoers, 
and  that  final,  enormous  rock  which,  by  a  fortunate  freak 
of  chance,  hurdled  a  negro  and  his  wagon  instead  of 
striking  and  destroying  them.  Ah,  how  rich  in  racy 
memories  are  those  streets!  Somewhere  among  them, 
in  that  part  of  town  which  has  come  to  be  called  "Mark- 
Twainville,"  is  the  very  spot,  unmarked  and  unknown, 

244 


At  one  side  is  an  alley  running  back  to  the  house  of  Huckleberry  Finn,  and 
in  that  alley  stood  the  historic  fence  which  young  Sam  Clemens  cajoled  the 
other  boys  into  whitewashing  for  him 


HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

where  young  Sam  Clemens  picked  up  a  scrap  of  news 
paper  upon  which  was  printed  a  portion  of  the  tale  of 
Joan  of  Arc — a  scrap  of  paper  which,  Paine  says,  gave 
him  his  first  literary  stimulus.  And  somewhere  else, 
not  far  from  the  house,  is  the  place  where  Orion  Clem 
ens,  Sam's  elder  brother,  ran  the  ill-starred  newspaper 
on  which  Sam  worked,  setting  type  and  doing  his  first 
writing.  It  was,  indeed,  in  Orion's  paper  that  Sam's  fa 
mous  verse,  "To  Mary  in  Hannibal,"  was  published— 
the  title  condensed,  because  of  the  narrow  column,  to 
read:  "To  Mary  in  H— 1." 

Along  the  crest  of  the  bluffs,  overlooking  the  river, 
the  city  of  Hannibal  has  made  for  itself  a  charming 
park,  and  at  the  highest  point  in  this  park  there  is  to  be 
unveiled,  in  a  short  time,  a  statue  of  Samuel  Langhorne 
Clemens,  which,  from  its  position,  will  command  a  view 
of  many  leagues  of  mile-wide  Mississippi.  It  is  pecul 
iarly  fitting  that  the  memorial  should  be  stationed  in 
that  place.  Mark  Twain  loved  the  river.  Even  though 
it  almost  "got"  him  in  his  boyhood  (he  had  "nine  nar 
row  escapes  from  drowning")  he  adored  it;  later,  when 
his  youthful  ambition  to  become  a  river  pilot  was  at 
tained,  he  still  adored  it;  and  finally  he  wrote  his  love 
of  it  into  that  masterpiece,  "Life  on  the  Mississippi," 
of  which  Arnold  Bennett  has  said:  "I  would  sacrifice 
for  it  the  entire  works  of  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot." 

Looking  up  the  river  from  the  spot  where  the  statue 
will  be  placed,  one  may  see  Turtle  Island,  where  Tom 
and  Huck  used  to  go  and  feast  on  turtle's  eggs — rowing 

245 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

there  in  that  boat  which,  after  they  had  so  "honestly  and 
industriously"  stolen  it,  they  painted  red,  that  its  former 
proprietor  might  not  recognize  it.  Below  is  Glascox 
Island,  where  Nigger  Jim  hid.  Glascox  Island  is  often 
called  Tom  Sawyer's  Island,  or  Mark  Twain's  Island, 
now.  Not  far  below  the  island  is  the  "scar  on  the  hill 
side"  which  marks  the  famous  cave. 

"For  Sam  Clemens,"  says  Paine  in  his  biography, 
"the  cave  had  a  fascination  that  never  faded.  Other 
localities  and  diversions  might  pall,  but  any  mention  of 
the  cave  found  him  always  eager  and  ready  for  the 
three-mile  walk  or  pull  that  brought  them  to  the  mystic 
door." 

I  suggested  to  my  companion  that,  for  the  sake  of 
sentiment,  we,  too,  approach  the  cave  by  rowing  down 
the  river.  And,  having  suggested  the  plan,  I  offered 
to  take  upon  myself  the  heaviest  responsibility  con 
nected  with  it — that  of  piloting  the  boat  in  these  un 
familiar  waters.  All  I  required  of  him  was  the  mere 
manual  act  of  working  the  oars.  To  my  amazement  he 
refused.  I  fear  that  he  not  only  lacks  sentiment,  but 
that  he  is  becoming  lazy. 

We  drove  out  to  the  cave  in  a  Ford  car. 

Do  you  remember  when  Tom  Sawyer  took  the  boys 
to  the  cave  at  night,  in  "Huckleberry  Finn"  ? 

"We  went  to  a  clump  of  bushes,"  says  Huck,  "and 
Tom  made  everybody  swear  to  keep  the  secret,  and  then 
showed  them  a  hole  in  the  hill,  right  in  the  thickest  part 
of  the  bushes.  Then  we  lit  candles  and  crawled  in  on 

246 


HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

our  hands  and  knees.  We  went  about  two  hundred 
yards,  and  then  the  cave  opened  up.  Tom  poked  about 
among  the  passages,  and  pretty  soon  ducked  under  a 
wall  where  you  would  n't  'a'  noticed  there  was  a  hole. 
We  went  along  a  narrow  place  and  got  into  a  kind  of 
room,  all  damp  and  sweaty  and  cold,  and  there  we 
stopped.  Tom  says :  'Now  we  '11  start  this  band  of 
robbers  and  call  it  Tom  Sawyer's  Gang.  Everybody 
that  wants  to  join  has  got  to  take  an  oath  and  write  his 
name  in  blood.' ' 

That  is  the  sort  of  cave  it  is — a  wonderful,  mysteri 
ous  place,  black  as  India  ink;  a  maze  of  passage-ways 
and  vaulted  rooms,  eaten  by  the  waters  of  long  ago 
through  the  limestone  cliffs ;  a  seemingly  endless  cavern 
full  of  stalactites  and  stalagmites,  looking  like  great 
conical  masses  of  candle  grease;  a  damp,  oppressive 
labyrinth  of  eerie  rock  formations,  to  kindle  the  most 
bloodcurdling  imaginings. 

As  we  moved  in,  away  from  the  daylight,  illuminating 
our  way,  feebly,  with  such  matches  as  we  happened  to 
have  with  us,  and  with  newspaper  torches,  the  man  who 
had  driven  us  out  there  told  us  about  the  cave. 

"They  ain't  no  one  ever  explored  it,"  he  said.  "'S 
too  big.  Why,  they  's  a  lake  in  here — quite  a  big  lake, 
with  fish  in  it.  And  they  's  an  arm  of  the  cave  that 
goes  away  down  underneath  the  river.  They  say  they  's 
wells,  too — holes  with  no  bottoms  to  'em.  Prob'ly 
that 's  where  them  people  went  to  that 's  got  lost  in  the 


cave." 


247 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"Have  people  gotten  lost  in  here  ?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  yes/'  he  said  cheerfully.  "They  say  there 's 
some  that 's  gone  in  and  never  come  out  again.  She  's 
quite  a  cave." 

I  began  to  walk  more  gingerly  into  the  blackness. 

"I  suppose/'  I  said  to  him  presently,  "there  are  toads 
and  snakes  and  such  things  here?" 

He  hastened  to  set  my  mind  at  rest  on  that. 

"Oh,  Lord  bless  you,  yes!"  he  declared.  "Bats, 
too." 

"And  I  suppose  some  of  those  holes  you  speak  of  are 
full  of  snakes?" 

"Most  likely."  His  voice  reverberated  in  the  dark 
ness.  "But  I  can't  be  sure.  Nobody  that 's  ever  been 
in  them  holes  ain't  lived  to  tell  the  tale." 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  a  point  at  which  no 
glimmer  of  light  from  the  mouth  of  the  cave  was  visible. 
We  were  feeling  our  way  along,  running  our  hands 
over  the  damp  rocks  and  putting  our  feet  before  us  with 
the  utmost  caution.  I  knew,  of  course,  that  it  would 
add  a  good  deal  to  my  story  if  one  of  our  party  fell  into 
a  hole  and  was  never  again  heard  from,  but  the  more  I 
thought  about  it  the  more  advisable  it  seemed  to  me  that 
I  should  not  be  that  one.  I  had  an  engagement  for  din 
ner  that  evening,  and  besides,  if  I  fell  in,  who  would 
write  the  story?  Certainly  the  driver  of  the  auto-hack, 
for  all  his  good  will,  could  hardly  do  it  justice;  whereas, 
if  he  fell  in  I  could  at  a  pinch  drive  the  little  Ford  back 
to  the  city. 

248 


HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

I  dropped  behind.     But  when  I  did  that  he  stopped. 

"I  just  stopped  for  breath/'  I  said.  "You  can  keep 
on  and  I  '11  follow  in  a  minute." 

"No,"  he  answered,  "I  '11  wrait  for  you.  I  'm  out  of 
breath,  too.  Besides,  I  don't  want  you  to  get  lost  in 
here." 

At  this  juncture  my  companion,  who  had  moved  a 
little  way  off,  gave  a  frightful  yell,  which  echoed  hor 
ribly  through  the  cavern. 

I  could  not  see  him.  I  did  not  know  what  was  the 
matter.  Never  mind!  My  one  thought  was  of  him. 
Perhaps  he  had  been  attacked  by  a  wildcat  or  a  serpent. 
Well,  he  was  my  fellow  traveler,  and  I  would  stand  by 
him!  Even  the  chauffeur  of  the  hack  seemed  to  feel 
the  same  way.  Together  we  turned  and  ran  toward 
the  place  whence  we  thought  the  voice  might  have  come 
— that  is  to  say,  toward  the  mouth  of  the  cave.  But 
when  we  reached  it  he  was  n't  there. 

"He  must  be  back  in  the  cave,  after  all,"  I  said  to  the 
driver. 

"Yes,"  he  agreed. 

"Now,  I  tell  you,"  I  said.  "We  must  n't  both  go  in 
after  him.  One  of  us  ought  to  stay  here  and  call  to  the 
others  to  guide  them  out.  I  '11  do  that.  I  have  a  good 
strong  voice.  And  you  go  in  and  find  out  what 's  the 
matter.  You  know  the  cave  better  than  I  do." 

"Oh,  no  I  don't/'  said  the  man. 

"Why  certainly  you  do!"  I  said. 

"I  was  n't  never  into  the  cave  before,"  he  said. 

249 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"Leastways  not  nowhere  near  as  far  as  we  was  this 
time." 

"But  you  live  right  here  in  Hannibal,"  I  insisted. 
"You  must  know  more  about  it  than  I  do.  I  live  in 
New  York.  What  could  I  know  about  a  cave  away 
out  here  in  Missouri?" 

"Well,  you  know  just  as  much  as  I  do,  anyhow,"  he 
returned  doggedly. 

"Look  here !"  I  said  sharply.  "I  hope  you  are  n't  a 
coward?  The  idea !  A  great  big  fellow  like  you,  too !" 

However,  at  that  juncture,  our  argument  was  stopped 
by  the  appearance  of  the  missing  man.  He  strolled  into 
the  light  in  leisurely  fashion. 

"What  happened?"  I  cried. 

"Happened?"  he  repeated.  "Nothing  happened. 
Why?" 

"You  yelled,  didn't  you?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  wanted  to  hear  the  echoes." 


Before  leaving  Hannibal  that  afternoon,  we  had  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  an  old  school  friend  of  Samuel 
Clemens's,  Colonel  John  L.  RoBards — the  same  John 
RoBards  of  whom  it  is  recorded  in  Paine's  work  that 
"he  wore  almost  continually  the  medal  for  amiability, 
while  Samuel  Clemens  had  a  mortgage  on  the  medal  for 
spelling." 

Colonel  RoBards  is  still  amiable.  He  took  us  to  his 
office,  showed  us  a  scrap-book  containing  clippings  in 

250 


HANNIBAL  AND  MARK  TWAIN 

which  he  was  mentioned  in  connection  with  Mark 
Twain,  and  told  us  of  old  days  in  the  log  schoolhouse. 

Seeing  that  I  was  making  notes,  the  Colonel  called 
my  attention  politely  to  the  spelling  of  his  name,  request 
ing  that  I  get  it  right.  Then  he  explained  to  me  the  rea 
son  for  the  capital  B,  beginning  the  second  syllable. 

"I  may  say,  sir/'  he  explained  in  his  fine  Southern 
manner,  "that  I  inserted  that  capital  B  myself.  At 
least  I  converted  the  small  B  into  a  capital.  I  am  a 
Kentuckian,  sir,  and  in  Kentucky  my  family  name 
stands  for  something.  It  is  a  name  that  I  am  proud  to 
bear,  and  I  do  not  like  to  be  called  out  of  it.  But  up 
here  I  \vas  continually  annoyed  by  the  errors  of  careless 
persons.  Frequently  they  would  fail  to  give  the  accent 
on  the  final  syllable,  where  it  should  be  placed,  sir — 
RoBards;  that  is  the  way  it  should  be  pronounced — but 
even  worse,  it  happened  now  and  then  that  some  one 
called  me  by  the  plebeian  appellation,  Roberts.  That 
was  most  distasteful  to  me,  sir.  Most  distasteful. 
For  that  reason  I  use  the  capital  B  for  emphasis." 

I  was  glad  to  assure  the  Colonel  that  in  these  pages 
his  name  would  be  correctly  spelled,  and  I  call  him  to 
witness  that  I  spoke  the  truth.  I  repeat,  the  name  is 
RoBards.  And  it  is  borne  by  a  most  amiable  gentle 
man. 

Mr.  F.  W.  Hixson  of  St.  Louis  has  in  his  possession 
an  autograph  book  which  belonged  to  his  mother  when 
she  was  a  young  girl  (Ann  Virginia  Ruffner),  residing 

251 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

in  Hannibal.  In  this  book,  Sam  Clemens  wrote  a  verse 
at  the  time  when  he  was  preparing  to  leave  the  town 
where  he  had  spent  his  youth.  I  reproduce  that  boyish 
bit  of  doggerel  here,  solely  for  the  value  of  one  word 
which  it  contains: 

Good-by,  good-by, 

I  bid  you  now,  my  friend ; 

And  though  'tis  hard  to 

say  the  word, 
To  destiny  I  bend. 

Never,  in  his  most  perfect  passages,  did  Samuel 
Clemens  hit  more  certainly  upon  the  one  right  word 
than  when  in  this  verse  he  wrote  the  second  word  in  the 
last  line. 

And  what  a  destiny  it  was! 


252 


pq 


i    '<>yWi 


m-i!^w.m^ 


CHAPTER  XX 
PIKE  AND  POKER 


i 


T  was  before  we  left  St.  Louis  that  I  received  a  let 
ter  inviting  us  to  visit  in  the  town  of  Louisiana, 
Mo.  I  quote  a  portion  of  it: 


Louisiana  is  in  Pike  County,  a  county  famous  for  its  big  red 
apples,  miles  of  rock  roads,  fine  old  estates,  Rhine  scenery, 
capons,  rare  old  country  hams,  and  poker.  Pike  County  means 
more  to  Missouri  than  Missouri  does  to  Pike. 

Do  you  remember  "Jim  Bludso  of  the  '  Prairie  Belle'  "  ? 

He  were  n't  no  saint — them  engineers 

Is  pretty  much  all  alike — 
One  nnfe  in  Natches-under-the-Hill 

And  another  one  here  in  Pike. 

We  can  show  you  "the  wilier-bank  on  the  right,"  where 
Bludso  ran  the  'Prairie  Belle'  aground  and  made  good  with  his 
life  his  old  promise : 

I'll  hold  her  nozzle  agin  the  bank 
Till  the  last  galoot 's  ashore. 

We  can  also  show  you  the  home  of  Champ  Clark,  and  the 
largest  nursery  in  the  world,  and  a  meadow  where,  twenty-five 
years  ago,  a  young  fellow  threw  down  his  hayfork  and  said  to 
his  companion :  "Sam,  I  'm  going  to  town  to  study  law  with 
Champ  Clark.  Some  day  I  'm  going  to  be  Governor  of  this 
State."  He  was  Elliott  W.  Major,  and  he  is  Governor  to-day. 

The  promise  held  forth  by  this  letter  appealed  to 
me.  It  is  always  interesting  to  see  whether  a  man  like 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Champ  Clark  lives  in  a  house  with  ornamental  iron 
fences  on  the  roof  and  iron  urns  in  the  front  yard;  like 
wise  there  is  a  sort  of  fascination  for  a  man  of  my  ex 
tensive  ignorance,  in  hearing  not  merely  how  the  Gov 
ernor  of  Missouri  decided  to  become  Governor,  but  in 
finding  out  his  name.  Then  those  hams  and  capons — 
how  many  politicians  can  compare  for  interest  with  a 
tender  capon  or  a  fine  old  country  ham?  And  perhaps 
more  alluring  to  me  than  any  of  these  was  the  idea  of 
going  to  visit  in  a  strange  State,  and  a  strange  town, 
and  a  strange  house — the  house  of  a  total  stranger. 

We  accepted. 

Our  host  met  us  with  his  touring  car  and  proceeded 
to  make  good  his  promises  about  the  nursery,  and  the 
scenery,  and  the  roads,  and  the  estates,  and  as  we  bowled 
along  he  told  us  about  "Pike."  It  is  indeed  a  great 
county.  And  the  fact  that  it  was  originally  settled  by 
Virginians,  Kentuckians,  and  Carolinians  still  stamps 
it  strongly  with  the  qualities  of  the  South.  Though 
north  of  St.  Louis  on  the  map,  it  is  south  of  St.  Louis 
in  its  spirit.  Indeed,  Louisiana  is  the  most  Southern 
town  in  appearance  and  feeling  that  we  visited  upon  our 
travels.  The  broad  black  felt  hats  one  sees  about  the 
streets,  the  luxuriant  mustaches  and  goatees — all  these 
things  mark  the  town,  and  if  they  are  not  enough,  you 
should  see  "Indy"  Gordon  as  she  walks  along  puffing 
at  a  bulldog  pipe  black  as  her  own  face. 

Never  outside  of  Brittany  and  Normandy  have  I  seen 
roads  so  full  of  animals  as  those  of  Pike  County.  From 

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PIKE  AND  POKER 

the  great  four-horse  teams,  drawing  produce  to  and 
from  the  beautiful  estate  called  "Falicon,"  to  the  mule 
teams  and  the  saddle  horses  and  the  cows  and  pigs  and 
chickens  and  dogs,  all  the  quadrupeds  and  bipeds  domes 
ticated  by  mankind  were  there  upon  the  roads  to  meet 
us  and  to  protest,  by  various  antics,  against  the  invasion 
of  the  motor  car.  Dogs  hurled  themselves  at  the  car  as 
though  to  suicide;  chickens  extended  themselves  in 
shrieking  dives  across  our  course;  pigs  arose  from  the 
luxurious  mud  with  grunts  of  frantic  disapproval,  and 
cantered  heavily  into  the  fields ;  cows  trotted  lumberingly 
before  us,  their  hind  legs  and  their  fore  legs  moving,  it 
seemed,  without  relation  to  each  other ;  a  goat  ran  round 
and  round  the  tree  to  which  he  was  attached;  mules 
pointed  their  ears  to  heaven,  and  opened  their  eyes  wide 
in  horror  and  amazement;  beautiful  saddle  horses  bear 
ing  countrymen,  or  rosy-cheeked  young  women  from 
the  farms,  tried  to  climb  into  the  boughs  of  wayside 
trees  for  safety,  and  four-horse  teams  managed  to  get 
themselves  involved  in  a  manner  only  rivaled  by  a  ball 
of  yarn  with  which  a  kitten  is  allowed  to  work  its  own 
sweet  will. 

Our  host  took  all  these  matters  calmly.  When  a  mule 
protested  at  our  presence  on  the  road,  it  would  merely 
serve  as  a  reminder  that,  "Pike  County  furnished  most 
of  the  mules  for  the  Spanish  war";  or,  when  a  saddle 
horse  showed  signs  of  homicidal  purpose,  it  would  draw 
the  calm  observation,  'Tike  is  probably  the  greatest 
county  in  the  whole  United  States  for  saddle  horses. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

'Missouri  King/  the  undefeated  champion  saddle  horse 
of  the  world,  was  raised  here." 

So  we  progressed  amid  the  outraged  animals. 

My  feeling  as  I  alighted  at  last  on  the  step  before  our 
host's  front  door  was  one  of  definite  relief.  For  dinner 
is  the  meal  I  care  for  most,  and  man,  with  all  his  faults, 
the  animal  I  most  enjoy. 

The  house  was  genial  like  its  owner — it  was  just  the 
sort  of  house  I  like;  large  and  open,  with  wide  halls, 
spacious  rooms,  comfortable  beds  and .  chairs,  and  ash 
trays  everywhere. 

"I  Ve  asked  some  men  in  for  dinner  and  a  little  game," 
our  host  informed  us,  as  he  left  us  to  our  dressing. 

Presently  we  heard  motors  arriving  in  the  drive,  be 
neath  our  windows.  When  we  descended,  the  living 
room  was  filled  with  men  in  dinner  suits.  (Oh,  yes; 
they  wear  them  in  those  Mississippi  River  towns,  and 
they  fit  as  well  as  yours  does!) 

When  we  had  been  introduced  we  all  moved  to  the 
dining  room. 

At  each  place  was  a  printed  menu  with  the  heading 
"At  Home  Abroad" — a  hospitable  inversion  of  the  gen 
eral  title  of  these  chapters — and  with  details  as  follows  : 

A  COUNTRY  DINNER 

Old   Pike   County  ham, 
Pike   County   capons 
and  other  Pike  County  essentials, 
with  Pike  County  Colonels. 

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PIKE  AND  POKER 

At  the  bottom  of  the  card  was  this — shall  I  call  it 
warning  ? 

Senator  Warner  once  said  to  Colonel  Roosevelt :  "Pike 
County  babies  cut  their  teeth  on  poker  chips." 

I  have  already  said  that  Pike  is  a  county  with  a  South 
ern  savor,  but  I  had  not  realized  how  fully  that  was  true 
until  I  dined  there.  I  will  not  say  that  I  have  never 
tasted  such  a  dinner,  for  truth  I  hold  even  above  polite 
ness.  All  I  will  say  is  that  if  ever  before  I  had  met  with 
such  a  meal  the  memory  of  it  has  departed — and,  I  may 
add,  my  memory  for  famous  meals  is  considered  good 
to  the  point  of  irritation. 

The  dinner  (save  for  the  "essentials")  was  entirely 
made  up  of  products  of  the  county.  More,  it  was  even 
supervised  and  cooked  by  county  products,  for  two  par 
ticularly  sweet  young  ladies,  members  of  the  family, 
were  flying  around  the  kitchen  in  their  pretty  evening 
gowns,  helping  and  directing  Molly. 

Molly  is  a  pretty  mulatto  girl.  Her  skin  is  like  a 
smooth,  light-colored  bronze,  her  eye  is  dark  and  gentle, 
like  that  of  some  domesticated  animal,  her  voice  drawls 
in  melodious  cadences,  and  she  has  a  sort  of  shyness 
which  is  very  fetching. 

"Ah  cain't  cook  lak  they  used  to  cook  in  the  ole  days/' 
she  smiled  in  response  to  my  tribute  to  the  dinner,  later. 
"The  Kuhnel  was  askin'  jus'  th'  othah  day  if  ah  could 
make  'im  some  ash  cake,  but  ah  haid  to  tell  'im 
ah  could  n't.  Ah  Ve  seen  ma  gran'fatha  make  it 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

lots  o'  times,  but  folks  cain't  make  it  no  mo',  now-a- 
days." 

Poor  benighted  Northerner  that  I  am,  I  had  to  ask 
what  ash  cake  was.  It  is  a  kind  of  corn  cake,  Molly 
told  me,  the  parent,  so  to  speak,  of  the  corn  dodger,  and 
the  grandparent  of  hoecake.  It  has  to  be  prepared  care 
fully  and  then  cooked  in  the  hot  ashes — cooked  "jes  so," 
as  Molly  said. 

Having  learned  about  ash  cake,  I  demanded  more 
Pike  County  culinary  lore,  whereupon  I  was  told,  partly 
by  my  host,  and  partly  by  Molly,  about  the  oldtime  wed 
ding  cooks. 

Wedding  cooks  were  the  best  cooks  in  the  South, 
supercooks,  with  state-wide  reputations.  When  there 
was  a  wedding  a  dinner  was  given  at  the  home  of  the 
bride,  for  all  the  wedding  guests,  and  it  was  in  the 
preparation  of  this  repast  that  the  wedding  cook  of  the 
bride's  family  showed  what  she  could  do.  That  dinner 
was  on  the  day  of  the  wedding.  On  the  next  day  the 
entire  company  repaired  to  the  home  of  the  groom's 
family,  where  another  dinner  was  served — a  dinner  in 
which  the  wedding  cook  belonging  to  this  family  tried 
to  outdo  that  of  the  day  before.  This  latter  feast  was 
known  as  the  "infair."  But  all  these  old  Southern  cus 
toms  seem  to  have  departed  now,  along  with  the  wed 
ding  cooks  themselves.  The  latter  very  seldom  came 
to  sale,  being  regarded  as  the  most  valuable  of  all  slaves. 
Once  in  a  while  when  some  leading  family  was  in 
financial  difficulties  and  was  forced  to  sell  its  wedding 

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PIKE  AND  POKER 

cook  she  would  bring  as  much  as  eight  or  ten  times  the 
price  of  an  ordinary  female  slave. 

After  dinner,  when  we  moved  out  to  the  living  room, 
we  found  a  large,  green  table  all  in  place,  with  the  chips 
arranged  in  little  piles.  But  let  me  introduce  you  to 
the  players. 

First,  there  was  Colonel  Edgar  Stark,  our  host,  genial 
and  warm-hearted  over  dinner ;  cold  and  inscrutable  be 
hind  his  spectacles  when  poker  chips  appeared. 

Then  Colonel  Charlie  Buffum,  heavily  built,  but  with 
a  similar  dual  personality. 

Then  Colonel  Frank  Buffum,  State  Highway  Com 
missioner;  or,  as  some  one  called  him  later  in  the  even 
ing,  when  the  chips  began  to  gather  at  his  place,  State 
"highwayman." 

Then  Colonel  Dick  Goodman,  banker,  raconteur,  and 
connoisseur  of  edibles  and  "essentials." 

Then  Colonel  George  S.  Cake,  who,  when  not  a 
Colonel,  is  a  Commodore:  commander  of  the  "Betsy," 
flagship  of  the  Louisiana  Yacht  Club,  and  the  most  fa 
mous  craft  to  ply  the  Mississippi  since  the  "Prairie 
Belle."  (Don't  "call"  Colonel  Cake  when  he  raises  you 
and  at  the  same  time  raises  his  right  eyebrow.) 

Then  Colonel  Dick  Hawkins,  former  Collector  of  the 
Port  of  St.  Louis,  and  more  recently  (since  there  has 
been  so  little  in  St.  Louis  to  collect)  a  gentleman  far 
mer.  (Colonel  Hawkins  always  wins  at  poker.  The 
question  is  not  "Will  he  win?"  but  "How  much?") 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Only  two  men  in  the  game  were  not,  so  far  as  I  dis 
covered,  Colonels. 

One,  Major  Dave  Wald,  has  been  held  back  in  title 
because  of  time  devoted  to  the  pursuit  of  literature. 
Major  Wald  has  written  a  book.  The  subject  of  the 
book  is  Poker.  As  a  tactician,  he  is  perhaps  unrivaled 
in  Missouri.  He  will  look  at  a  hand  and  instantly  de 
clare  the  percentage  of  chance  it  stands  of  filling  in  the 
draw,  according  to  the  law  of  chance.  One  hand  will 
be,  to  Major  Wald,  a  "sixteen-time  hand";  another  a 
"thirty-two  time  hand/'  and  so  on — meaning  that  the 
player  has  one  chance  in  sixteen,  or  in  thirty-two,  of 
filling. 

The  other  player  was  merely  a  plain  "Mister,"  like 
ourselves — Mr.  John  W.  Matson,  the  corporation 
lawyer.  At  first  I  felt  sorry  for  Mr.  Matson.  It 
seemed  hard  that  the  rank  of  Colonel  had  been  denied 
him.  But  when  I  saw  him  shuffle  and  deal,  I  was  no 
longer  sorry  for  him,  but  for  myself.  With  the  pos 
sible  exception  of  General  Bob  Williams  (who  won't 
play  any  more  now  that  he  has  been  appointed  post 
master),  and  Colonel  Clarence  Buell,  who  used  to  play 
in  the  big  games  on  the  Mississippi  boats,  Mr.  Matson 
can  shufBe  and  deal  more  rapidly  and  more  accurately 
than  any  man  in  Missouri. 

Colonel  Buell  was  present,  as  was  Colonel  Lloyd 
Stark,  but  neither  played.  Colonel  Buell  had  intended 
to,  but  on  being  told  that  my  companion  and  I  were  from 
New  York  he  declined  to  "take  the  money."  The 

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PIKE  AND  POKER 

Colonel — but  to  say  "the  Colonel"  in  Pike  County  is 
hardly  specific — Colonel  Buell,  I  mean,  is  the  same  gen 
tleman  who  fought  the  Indians,  long  ago,  with  Buffalo 
Bill,  and  who  later  acted  as  treasurer  of  the  Wild  West 
Show  on  its  first  trip  to  Europe.  Some  one  informed 
me  that  the  Colonel — Colonel  Buell,  I  mean — was  a 
capitalist,  but  the  information  \vas  beside  the  mark,  for 
I  had  already  seen  the  diamond  ring  he  wears — a  most 
remarkable  piece  of  landscape  gardening. 

During  the  evening  Colonel  Buell,  who  stood  for  an 
hour  or  two  and  watched  the  play,  spoke  of  certain 
things  that  he  had  seen  and  done  which,  as  I  estimated 
it,  could  not  have  been  seen  or  done  within  the  last 
sixty  years.  "How  old  is  Colonel  Buell?"  I  asked  an 
other  Colonel. 

"Colonel,"  asked  the  Colonel,  "how  old  are  you?" 

"Colonel,"  replied  the  Colonel,  "I  am  exactly  in  my 
prime." 

"I  know  that,  Colonel,"  said  the  Colonel,  "but  what 
is  your  age?" 

"Colonel,"  returned  the  Colonel  suavely,  "I  have  for 
gotten  my  exact  age.  But  I  know  that  I  am  somewhere 
between  eighty  and  one  hundred  and  forty-two." 

It  was  Mr.  Matson's  deal.  He  dealt.  The  cards 
passed  through  the  air  and  fell,  one  on  the  other,  in 
neat  piles.  (If  you  prefer  it,  Mr.  Matson  can  drop  a 
fan-shaped  hand  before  you,  all  ready  to  pick  up.)  And 
from  the  time  that  the  first  hand  was  played  I  knew  that 
here,  as  in  St.  Louis,  my  companion  and  I  were  babes 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

among  the  lions.  I  do  not  know  how  he  played,  but  I 
do  know  that  I  played  along  as  best  I  could,  only  trying 
not  to  lose  too  much  money  at  once. 

But  why  rehearse  the  pathetic  story?  I  spoke  in  a 
former  chapter  of  Missouri  poker,  and  Pike  County  is  a 
county  in  Missouri.  Bet  on  a  good  pat  hand  and  some 
one  always  holds  a  better  one.  Bluff  and  they  call  you. 
Call  and  they  beat  you.  There  is  no  way  of  winning 
from  Missouri.  Missouri  poker  players  are  mahatmas. 
They  have  an  occult  sense  of  cards.  Babes  at  their 
mothers'  breasts  can  tell  the  difference  between  a 
straight  and  a  flush  long  before  they  have  the  power  of 
speech.  Once,  while  in  Pike  County,  I  asked  a  little 
boy  how  many  brothers  and  sisters  he  had.  "One 
brother  and  three  sisters,"  he  replied,  and  added:  "A 
full  house." 

The  Missouri  gentlemen,  so  gay,  so  genial,  at  the  din 
ner  table,  take  on  a  frigid  look  when  the  cards  and  chips 
appear.  They  turn  from  gentle,  kindly  human  beings 
into  relentless,  ravening  wolves,  each  intent  upon  the 
thought  of  devouring  the  other.  And  when,  over  a 
poker  game,  some  player  seems  to  enter  into  a  pleasant 
conversation,  the  other  players  know  that  even  that  is  a 
bluff— a  blind  to  cover  up  some  diabolic  plot. 

Once  during  the  game,  for  instance,  Colonel  Hawkins 
started  in  to  tell  me  something  of  his  history.  And  I, 
bland  simpleton,  believed  we  were  conversing  sans  ul- 
Jerior  motive. 

"I  used  to  be  in  politics,"  he  said.  "Then  I  was  in 

262 


PIKE  AND  POKER 

the  banking  business.  But  I  've  gone  back  to  farming 
now,  because  it  is  the  only  honest  business  in  the  world. 
In  fact—" 

But  at  that  juncture  the  steely  voices  of  half  the  other 
players  at  the  table  interrupted. 

"Ante!"  they  cried.     "Ante,  farmer!" 

Whereupon  Colonel  Hawkins,  who  by  that  time  had 
to  crane  his  neck  to  see  the  table  over  his  pile  of  chips — 
a  pile  of  chips  like  the  battlements  of  some  feudal  lord — 
anted  suavely. 

By  midnight  Colonel  Buell,  who  had  stood  behind  me 
for  a  time  and  watched  my  play,  showed  signs  of  fatigue 
and  anguish.  And  a  little  later,  after  having  seen  me 
try  to  "put  it  over"  with  three  sixes,  he  sighed  heavily 
and  went  home — a  fine,  slender,  courtly  figure,  straight 
as  a  gun  barrel,  walking  sadly  out  into  the  night.  Next 
Major  Wald  ceased  to  play  for  himself,  but  began  to 
take  an  interest  in  my  hand.  Under  his  supervision 
during  the  last  fifteen  minutes  of  the  game  I  made  a 
tiny  dent  in  Colonel  Hawkins's  stacks  of  chips.  But  it 
is  only  just  to  Colonel  Hawkins  to  say  that,  by  that  time, 
the  Missourians  were  so  sorry  for  us  that  they  were 
making  the  most  desperate  efforts  not  to  win  from  us 
any  more  than  they  could  help. 

When  the  game  broke  up,  Major  Wald  and  Colonel 
Hawkins  showed  concern  about  our  future. 

"How  far  are  you  young  men  going,  did  you  say?" 
asked  Colonel  Hawkins. 

"To  the  Pacific  Coast,"  I  answered. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

At  that  the  two  veteran  poker  players  looked  at  each 
other  solemnly,  in  silence,  and  shook  their  heads. 

"All  the  way  to  the  coast,  eh?"  demanded  Major 
Wald.  Then:  "Do  you  expect  to  play  cards  much  as 
you  go  along?" 

I  wished  to  uphold  the  honor  of  New  York  as  best  I 
could,  so  I  tried  to  reply  gamely. 

"Oh,  yes,"  I  said.  "Whenever  anybody  wants  a 
game  they  '11  find  us  ready." 

Again  I  saw  them  exchange  glances. 

"You  tell  him,  Major,"  said  Colonel  Hawkins,  walk 
ing  away. 

"Young  man,"  said  Major  Wald,  placing  his  hand 
kindly  on  my  shoulder,  "I  played  poker  before  you  were 
born.  I  know  a  good  deal  about  it.  You  would  n't  take 
offense  if  I  gave  you  a  pointer  about  your  game?" 

"On  the  contrary,"  I  said,  thinking  I  was  about  to 
hear  the  inner  secrets  of  Missouri  poker,  "I  shall  be 
most  grateful." 

"If  I  advise  you,"  he  pursued,  "will  you  agree  to  fol 
low  my  advice?" 

"Certainly." 

"Well,"  said  the  Major,  "don't  you  play  poker  any 
more  while  you  're  in  the  West.  Wait  till  you  get  back 
to  New  York." 


Seeing  the  houses  of  the  players  next  day  as  I  drove 
about  the  county,  I  suspected  that  even  these  had  been 

264 


PIKE  AND  POKER 

built  around  the  game  of  poker,  for  each  house  has 
ample  accommodations  for  the  "gang"  in  case  the  game 
lasts  until  too  late  to  go  home.  In  the  winter  the  games 
occur  at  the  houses  of  the  different  Colonels,  and  there 
is  always  a  dinner  first.  But  it  is  in  summer  that  the 
greatest  games  occur,  for  then  it  is  the  immemorial  cus 
tom  for  the  Colonels  (and  Major  Wald  and  Mr.  Matson, 
too,  of  course)  to  charter  a  steamer  and  go  out  on  the 
river.  These  excursions  sometimes  last  for  the  better 
part  of  a  week.  Sometimes  they  cruise.  Sometimes 
they  go  ashore  upon  an  island  and  camp.  "We  take  a 
tribe  of  cooks  and  a  few  cases  of  'essentials/  "  one  of 
the  Colonels  explained  to  me,  "and  the  game  never  stops 
at  all" 

My  companion  and  I  were  tired.  The  mental  strain 
had  told  upon  us.  Soon  after  the  Colonels,  the  Major, 
and  Mr.  Matson  went,  we  retired.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  I  had  hardly  closed  my  eyes  when  I  heard  a  faint 
rap  at  my  bedroom  door.  But  I  must  have  slept,  for 
there  was  sunlight  streaming  through  the  window. 

"What  is  it?"  I  called. 

The  voice  of  our  host  replied. 

"Breakfast  will  be  ready  any  time  you  want  it,"  he 
declared.  "Will  you  have  your  toddy  now?" 

Ah!     Pike  is  a  great  county! 

And  what  do  you  suppose  we  had  for  breakfast? 
At  the  center  of  the  table  was  a  pile  of  the  most  beau 
tiful  and  enormous  red  apples — fragrant  apples,  giving 
a  sweet,  appetizing  scent  which  filled  the  room.  I  had 

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thought  before  that  I  knew  something  about  apples,  but 
when  I  tasted  these  I  became  aware  that  no  merely  good 
apple,  no  merely  fine  apple,  would  ever  satisfy  my  taste 
again.  These  apples,  which  are  known  as  the  "Deli 
cious,"  are  to  all  other  apples  that  I  know  as  Missouri 
poker  is  to  all  other  poker.  They  are  in  a  class  abso 
lutely  alone,  and,  in  case  you  get  some  on  a  lucky  day, 
I  want  to  tell  you  how  to  eat  them  with  your  breakfast. 
Don't  eat  them  as  you  eat  an  ordinary  apple,  but  either 
fry  them,  with  a  slice  of  bacon,  or  cut  them  up  and  take 
them  as  you  do  peaches — that  is,  with  cream  and  sugar. 
Did  you  ever  see  an  apple  with  flesh  white  and  firm,  yet 
tender  as  a  pear  at  the  exact  point  of  perfect  ripeness? 
Did  you  ever  taste  an  apple  that  seemed  actually  to  melt 
upon  your  tongue?  That  is  the  sort  of  apple  we  had 
for  breakfast. 


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CHAPTER  XXI 
OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

LATER  we  motored  to  the  town  of  Clarksville, 
some  miles  down  the  river — a  town  which  hud 
dles  along  the  bank,  as  St.  Louis  must  have  in 
her  early  days.  Being  a  small,  straggling  village  which 
has  not,  if  one  may  judge  from  appearances,  progressed 
or  even  changed  in  fifty  years,  Clarksville  out-Hannibals 
Hannibal.  Or,  perhaps,  it  is  to-day  the  kind  of  town 
that  Hannibal  was  when  Mark  Twain  was  a  boy.  In 
its  decay  it  is  theatrically  perfect. 

Our  motor  stopped  before  the  bank,  and  we  were  in 
troduced  to  the  editor  of  the  local  paper,  which  is  called 
"The  Piker." 

The  bank  is,  in  appearance,  contemporary  with  the 
town.  The  fittings  are  of  the  period  of  the  Civil  War — 
walnut,  as  I  recall  them.  And  there  are  red  glass  signs 
over  the  little  window  grilles  bearing  the  legends 
"Cashier"  and  "President." 

In  the  back  room  we  met  the  president,  Mr.  John  O. 
Roberts,  a  gentleman  over  eighty  years  of  age,  who  can 
sit  back,  with  his  feet  upon  his  desk,  smoke  cigars,  and, 
from  a  cloud  of  smoke,  exude  the  most  delightful  stories 
of  old  days  on  the  Mississippi.  For  Mr.  Roberts  was 

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clerk  on  river  boats  more  than  sixty  years  ago,  in  the 
golden  days  of  the  great  stream.  There,  too,  we  had 
the  good  fortune  to  meet  Professor  M.  S.  Goodman, 
who  was  born  in  Missouri  in  1837,  and  founded  the 
Clarksville  High  School  in  1865.  The  professor  has 
written  the  history  of  Pike  County — but  that  is  a  big 
story  all  by  itself. 

In  the  old  days  Pike  County  embraced  many  of  the 
other  present  counties,  and,  running  all  the  way  from 
the  Mississippi  to  the  Missouri  River,  was  as  large  as  a 
good-sized  State.  Pike  has  colonized  more  Western 
country  than  any  other  county  in  Missouri;  or,  as  Pro 
fessor  Goodman  put  it,  "The  west  used  to  be  full  of 
Pike  County  men  who  had  pushed  out  there  with  their 
guns  and  bottles." 

"Yes,"  added  Mr.  Roberts  in  his  dry,  crackling  tone, 
"and  wherever  they  went  they  always  wanted  office/' 

I  asked  Mr.  Roberts  about  the  famous  poker  games 
on  the  river  boats. 

"I  antedate  poker/'  he  said.  "The  old  river  card 
game  was  called  'Brag/  It  was  out  of  brag  that  the 
game  of  poker  developed.  A  steward  on  one  of  the 
boats  once  told  me  that  he  and  the  other  boys  had  picked 
up  more  than  a  hundred  dollars  from  the  floor  of  a  room 
in  which  Henry  Clay  and  some  friends  had  been  play 
ing  brag/' 

Golden  days  indeed ! — and  for  every  one.  The  steam 
boat  companies  made  fabulous  returns  on  their  invest 
ments. 

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Mr   Roberts  is  a  wonder— nothing  less.    There's  a  book  in  him   and 
I  hope  that  somebody  will  write  it,  for  I  should  like  to  read  that  book 


OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

"In  '54  and  '55,"  said  Mr.  Roberts,  "I  worked  for 
the  St.  Louis  &  Keokuk  Packet  Company,  a  line  owning 
three  boats,  which  were  n't  worth  over  $75,000.  That 
company  cleaned  up  as  much  as  $150,000  clear  profit  in 
one  season.  And,  of  course,  a  season  was  n't  an  entire 
year,  either.  It  would  open  about  March  first  and  end 
in  December  or,  in  a  mild  winter,  January. 

"But  I  tell  you  we  used  to  drive  those  boats.  We  'd 
shoot  up  to  the  docks  and  land  our  passengers  and  mail 
and  freight  without  so  much  as  tying  up  or  even  stop 
ping.  We  'd  just  scrape  along  the  dock  and  then  be 
off  again. 

"The  highest  fare  ever  charged  between  St.  Louis 
and  Keokuk  was  $4  for  the  200  miles.  That  included 
a  berth,  wine,  and  the  finest  old  Southern  cooking  a  man 
ever  tasted.  The  best  cooks  I  've  ever  seen  in  my  life 
w^ere  those  old  steamboat  cooks.  And  we  gave  'em  good 
stuff  to  cook,  too.  We  bought  the  best  of  everything. 
You  ought  to  see  the  steaks  we  had  for  breakfast !  The 
officers  used  to  sit  at  the  ladies'  end  of  the  table  and 
serve  out  of  big  chafing  dishes.  I  tell  you  those  were 
meals! 

"There  was  lots  going  on  all  the  time  on  the  river. 
I  remember  one  trip  I  made  in  '52  in  the  old  'Di  Ver- 
non' — all  the  boats  in  the  line  were  named  for  characters 
in  Scott's  novels.  We  were  coming  from  New  Orleans 
with  350  German  immigrants  on  deck  and  100  Cali- 
fornians  in  the  cabin.  The  Californians  were  sports 
and  they  had  a  big  game  going  all  the  time.  We  had 

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two  gamblers  on  board,  too — John  McKenzie  and  his 
partner,  a  man  named  Wilburn.  They  used  to  come  on 
to  the  boats  at  different  places,  and  make  out  to  be  farm 
ers,  and  not  acquainted  with  each  other,  and  there  was 
always  something  doing  when  they  got  into  the  game. 

"Well,  this  time  cholera  broke  out  among  the  immi 
grants  on  the  deck.  They  began  dying  on  us.  But  we 
had  a  deckload  of  lumber,  so  we  were  well  fixed  to  han 
dle  'em.  We  took  the  lumber  and  built  coffins  for  'em, 
and  when  they  'd  die  we  'd  put  'em  in  the  coffins  and  save 
'em  until  we  got  enough  to  make  it  worth  stopping  to 
bury  'em.  Then  we  'd  tie  up  by  some  woodyard  and  be 
loading  up  with  wood  for  the  furnaces  while  the  burying 
was  going  on.  Some  twenty-five  or  thirty  of  'em  died 
on  that  trip,  and  we  planted  'em  at  various  points  along 
the  way.  And  all  the  while,  up  there  in  the  cabin,  the 
big  game  was  going  on — each  fellow  trying  to  cheat  the 
other. 

"After  we  got  to  St.  Louis  there  was  a  report  that 
we  'd  buried  a  man  with  $3,500  sewed  into  his  clothes. 
Of  course  we  did  n't  know  which  was  which  or  where 
we  'd  buried  this  man.  Well,  sir,  that  started  the  great 
est  bunch  of  mining  operations  along  the  river  bank  be 
tween  New  Orleans  and  St.  Louis  that  anybody  ever 
saw!  Every  one  was  digging  for  that  German.  Far 
as  I  heard,  though,  they  never  found  a  dollar  of 
him." 

Some  one  in  Clarksville  (in  my  notes  I  neglected  to 
set  down  the  origin  of  this  particular  item)  told  me  that 

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1% 


OLD  RIVER  DAYS 

the  term  "stateroom"  originated  on  the  Mississippi 
boats,  where  the  various  rooms  were  named  after  the 
States  of  the  Union,  a  legend  which,  if  true,  is  worth 
preserving. 

Another  interesting  item  relates  to  the  origin  of  the 
slang  term  "piker,"  which,  whatever  it  may  have  meant 
originally,  is  used  to-day  to  designate  a  timid,  close- 
fisted  gambler,  a  "tightwad"  or  "short  sport." 

When  one  inquires  as  to  the  origin  of  this  term,  Pike 
County,  Missouri,  begins  to  remember  that  there  is  an 
other  Pike  County — Pike  County,  Illinois,  just  across 
the  river,  which,  incidentally,  is  I  think,  the  "Pike"  re 
ferred  to  in  John  Hay's  poem. 

A  gentleman  in  Clarksville  explained  the  origin  of 
the  term  "piker"  to  me  thus: 

"In  the  early  days  men  from  Pike  County,  Missouri, 
and  Pike  County,  Illinois,  went  all  through  the  West. 
They  were  all  good  men.  In  fact,  they  were  such  a 
fine  lot  that  when  any  crooks  would  want  to  represent 
themselves  as  honest  men  they  would  say  they  were  from 
Pike.  As  a  result  of  this  all  the  bad  men  in  the  West 
claimed  to  be  from  our  section,  and  in  that  way  Pike  got 
a  bad  name.  So  when  the  westerners  suspected  a  man 
of  being  crooked,  they  'd  say :  Took  out  for  him ;  he  's 
a  Piker/  " 

In  St.  Louis  I  was  given  another  version.  There  I 
was  told  that  long  ago  men  would  come  down  from 
Pike  to  gamble.  They  loved  cards,  but  oftentimes 
had  n't  enough  money  to  play  a  big  game.  So,  it  was 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

said,  the  term  "Piker"  came  to  indicate  more  or  less  the 
type  it  indicates  to-day. 

No  bit  of  character  and  color  which  we  met  upon  our 
travels  remains  in  my  mind  more  pleasantly  than  the 
talk  we  had  with  those  fine  old  men  around  the  stove 
in  the  back  room  of  the  bank  of  Mr.  John  O.  Roberts, 
there  at  Clarksville.  Mr.  Roberts  is  a  wonder — noth 
ing  less.  There  's  a  book  in  him,  and  I  hope  that  some 
body  will  write  it,  for  I  should  like  to  read  that  book. 

As  we  were  leaving  the  bank  another  gentleman  came 
in.  We  were  introduced  to  him.  His  name  proved  also 
to  be  John  O.  Roberts — for  he  was  the  banker's  son. 

"Yes,"  the  elder  Mr.  Roberts  explained  to  me,  "and 
there  Js  another  John  O.  Roberts,  too — my  grandson. 
We  're  all  John  O.  Robertses  in  this  family.  We  per 
petuate  the  name  because  it 's  an  honest  name.  No 
John  O.  Roberts  ever  went  to  the  penitentiary — or  to 
the  legislature." 


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THE  BEGINNING  OF  THE  WEST 


CHAPTER  XXII 
KANSAS  CITY 

IF  you  will  take  a  map  of  the  United  States  and  fold 
it  so  that  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coast  lines  over 
lap,  the  crease  at  the  center  will  form  a  line  which 
runs  down  through  the  Dakotas,  Nebraska,  and  Kansas. 
That  is  not,  however,  the  true  dividing  line  between 
East  and  West.  If  I  were  to  try  to  draw  the  true  line, 
I  should  begin  at  the  north,  bringing  my  pencil  down 
between  the  cities  of  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis,  leaving 
the  former  to  the  east,  and  the  latter  to  the  west,  and  I 
should  follow  down  through  the  middle  of  Minnesota, 
Iowa,  and  Missouri,  so  that  St.  Louis  would  be  included 
on  the  eastern  map  and  Kansas  City  and  Omaha  on  the 
western. 

My  companion  and  I  had  long  looked  forward  to  the 
West,  and  had  speculated  as  to  where  we  should  first 
meet  it.  And  sometimes,  as  we  traveled  on,  we  doubted 
that  there  really  was  a  West  at  all,  and  feared  that  the 
whole  country  had  become  monotonously  "standard 
ized,"  as  was  recently  charged  by  a  correspondent  of  the 
London  "Times." 

I  remember  that  we  discussed  that  question  on  the 

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train,  leaving  St.  Louis,  wondering  whether  Kansas 
City,  whither  we  were  bound,  would  prove  to  be  but  one 
more  city  like  the  rest — a  place  with  skyscrapers  and 
shops  and  people  resembling,  almost  exactly,  the  sky 
scrapers  and  shops  and  people  of  a  dozen  other  cities  we 
had  seen. 

Morning  in  the  sleeping  car  found  us  less  concerned 
about  the  character  of  cities  than  about  our  coffee. 
Coffee  was  not  to  be  had  upon  the  train.  In  cheerless 
emptiness  we  sat  and  waited  for  the  station. 

While  my  berth  was  being  turned  into  its  daytime 
aspect,  I  was  forced  to  accept  a  seat  beside  a  stranger : 
a  little  man  with  a  black  felt  hat,  a  weedy  mustache  of 
neutral  color,  and  an  Elk's  button.  I  had  a  feeling  that 
he  meant  to  talk  with  me ;  a  feeling  which  amounted  to 
dread.  Nothing  appeals  to  me  at  seven  in  the  morning ; 
least  of  all  a  conversation.  At  that  hour  my  enthusiasm 
shows  only  a  low  blue  flame,  like  a  gas  jet  turned  down 
almost  to  the  point  of  going  out.  And  in  the  feeble  light 
of  that  blue  flame,  my  fellow  man  becomes  a  vague 
shape,  threatening  unsolicited  civilities.  I  do  not  like 
the  hour  of  seven  in  the  morning  anywhere,  and  if  there 
is  one  condition  under  which  I  loathe  it  most,  it  is  before 
breakfast  in  a  smelly  sleeping  car.  I  saw  the  little  man 
regarding  me.  He  was  about  to  speak.  And  there  I 
was,  absolutely  at  his  mercy,  without  so  much  as  a  news 
paper  behind  which  to  shield  myself. 

"Are  you  from  New  York?"  he  asked. 

With  about  the  same  amount  of  effort  it  would  take 

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KANSAS  CITY 

to  make  a  long  after-dinner  speech,  I  managed  to  enun 
ciate  a  hollow:     "Yes." 

"I  thought  so,"  he  returned. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  the  remark  required  no  answer. 
He  waited;  then,  presently,  vouchsafed  the  added  in 
formation:  "I  knew  it  by  your  shoes." 

Mechanically  I  looked  at  my  shoes;  then  at  his.  I 
felt  like  saying:  "Why?  Because  my  shoes  are  pol 
ished?"  But  I  didn't.  All  I  said  was,  "Oh." 

"That  's  a  New  York  last,"  he  explained.  "Long  and 
flat.  You  can't  get  a  shoe  like  that  out  in  this  section. 
Nobody  'd  buy  'em  if  we  made  'em."  Then  he  added: 
"I  'm  in  the  shoe  line,  myself." 

He  paused  as  though  expecting  me  to  state  my  "line." 
However,  I  did  n't.  Very  likely  he  thought  it  some 
thing  shameful.  After  a  moment's  silence,  he  asked: 
"Travel  out  this  way  much?" 

"Never,"  I  said. 

"Never  been  in  Kansas  City?" 

I  shook  my  head. 

"Well,"  he  volunteered,  "it 's  a  great  town.  Great 
est  farm  implement  market  in  the  world."  (He  drawled 
"world"  as  though  it  were  spelled  with  a  double  R.) 
"Very  little  manufacturing  but  a  great  distributing 
point.  All  cattle  and  farming  out  here.  Everything 
depends  on  the  crops.  Different  from  the  East." 

I  looked  out  of  the  window. 

It  was  different  from  the  East.  Even  through  the 
smoky  fog  I  saw  that. 

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"Kansas  City !"  called  the  negro  porter. 

I  arose  with  a  sigh,  said  good-by  to  the  little  man,  and 
made  my  way  from  the  car. 

The  heavy  mist  was  laden  with  a  smoky  smell  like 
that  of  an  incipient  London  fog.  Through  it  I  dis 
cerned,  dimly,  a  Vesuvian  hill,  piling  up  to  the  left,  while, 
to  the  right,  a  maze  of  tracks  and  trains  lost  themselves 
in  the  gray  blur.  Immediately  before  me  stood  as  dis 
reputable  a  station  as  I  ever  saw,  its  platforms  oozing 
mud,  and  its  doorways  oozing  immigrants  and  other 
forlorn  travelers.  Of  all  the  people  there,  I  observed 
but  two  who  were  agreeable  to  the  eye:  a  young  girl, 
admirably  modish,  and  her  mother.  But  even  looking 
at  this  girl  I  remained  depressed.  "You  don't  belong 
here/'  I  wished  to  say  to  her,  "that 's  clear  enough.  No 
one  like  you  could  live  in  such  a  place.  You  need  n't 
think  /  live  here,  either;  for  I  don't!  Most  decidedly  I 
don't!" 

We  got  into  a  taxi,  my  companion  and  I,  and  the  taxi 
started  immediately  to  climb  with  us,  like  a  mountain 
goat,  ascending  a  steep  hill  in  leaps,  over  an  atrocious 
pavement,  and  between  vacant  lots  and  shabby  buildings 
which  seemed  to  me  to  presage  an  undeveloped  town  and, 
worse  yet,  a  bad  hotel. 

My  companion  must  have  thought  as  I  did,  for  I  re 
member  his  saying  in  a  somber  tone :  "I  guess  we  're 
in  for  it  this  time,  all  right !" 

Those  are  the  first  words  that  I  recall  his  having 
spoken  that  morning. 

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KANSAS  CITY 

After  ascending  for  some  time,  we  began  to  coast 
down  again,  still  through  unprepossessing  thorough 
fares,  until  at  last  we  slid  up  in  the  mud  to  the  door 
of  the  Hotel  Baltimore — one  of  the  busiest  hotels  in  the 
whole  United  States. 

On  sight  of  the  hotel  I  took  a  little  heart.  Break 
fast  was  near  and  the  hostelry  looked  promising.  It 
was,  indeed,  the  first  building  that  I  saw  in  Kansas  City, 
that  seemed  to  justify  "City." 

The  coffee  at  the  Baltimore  proved  good.  We  saw 
that  we  were  in  a  large  and  capably  conducted  cara 
vansary — a  metropolitan  hotel  with  a  dining  room  like 
some  interior  in  the  capitol  of  Minnesota,  and  a  Pom- 
peian  room,  the  very  look  of  which  bespoke  a  cabaret 
performance  at  a  later  hour.  From  the  window  where 
we  sat  at  breakfast  we  saw  wagons  with  brakes  set, 
descending  the  hill,  and  streams  of  people  hurrying  on 
their  way  to  work:  sturdy-looking  men  and  healthy- 
looking  girls,  the  latter  stamped  with  that  cheap  yet 
indisputable  style  so  characteristic  of  the  young  Ameri 
can  working  woman — a  sort  of  down-at-the-heels  showi- 
ness  in  dress,  which,  combined  with  an  elaborate  coiffure 
and  a  fine,  if  slightly  affected  carriage,  makes  her  at 
once  a  pretty  and  pathetic  object. 

In  Kansas  City  one  is  well  within  the  borders  of  the 
land  of  silver  dollars.  Dollar  bills  are  scarce.  Pay  for 
a  cigar  with  a  $5  bill,  and  your  change  is  more  than  likely 
to  include  four  of  those  silver  cartwheels  which,  though 
merely  annoying  in  ordinary  times,  must  be  a  real  source 

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of  danger  when  the  floods  come,  as  one  understands 
they  sometimes  do  in  Kansas  City.  Not  only  are  small 
bills  scarce  but,  I  fancy,  the  humble  copper  cent  is  viewed 
in  Kansas  City  with  less  respect  than  in  the  East.  I 
base  this  conclusion  upon  the  fact  that  a  dignified  old 
negro,  wearing  a  bronze  medal  suspended  from  a  ribbon 
tied  about  his  neck,  charged  me  five  cents  at  the  door  of 
the  dining  room  for  a  one-cent  paper — a  rate  of  extor 
tion  surpassing  that  of  New  York  hotel  news  stands. 
However,  as  that  paper  was  the  Kansas  City  "Star,"  I 
raised  no  objection;  for  the  "Star"  is  a  great  newspaper. 
But  of  that  presently. 

Later  I  found  fastened  to  the  wall  of  my  bathroom 
something  which,  as  I  learned  afterward,  is  quite  com 
mon  among  hotels  in  the  West,  but  which  I  have  never 
seen  in  an  eastern  hotel — a  slot  machine  which,  for  a 
quarter,  supplies  any  of  the  following  articles:  tooth 
paste,  listerine,  cold  cream,  bromo  lithia,  talcum  powder, 
a  toothbrush,  a  shaving  stick,  or  a  safety  razor. 

Counterbalancing  this  convenience,  however,  I  found 
in  my  room  but  one  telephone  instrument,  although 
Kansas  City  is  served  by  two  separate  companies.  This 
proved  annoying;  calls  coming  by  the  Missouri  &  Kan 
sas  Telephone  Company's  lines  reached  me  in  my  room, 
but  those  coming  over  the  wires  of  the  Home  Telephone 
Company  had  to  be  answered  downstairs,  whither  I  was 
summoned  twice  that  morning — once  from  my  bath  and 
once  while  shaving.  I  had  not  been  in  Kansas  City  half 
a  day  before  discovering  that  monopoly — at  least  in  the 

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KANSAS  CITY 

case  of  the  telephone — has  its  very  definite  advantages. 
A  double  system  of  telephones  is  a  nuisance.  Even 
where,  as  for  instance  in  Portland,  Oregon,  there  are 
two  instruments  in  each  room,  one  never  knows  which 
bell  is  ringing.  Duplication  is  unnecessary,  and  where 
there  are  two  companies,  lack  of  duplication  is  annoying. 
Every  home  or  office  in  Kansas  City  provided  with  but 
one  instrument  is  cut  off  from  communication  with 
many  other  homes  and  offices  having  the  other  service, 
wrhile  those  having  both  instruments  have  to  pay  the 
price  of  two. 

It  always  amuses  me  to  hear  criticisms  by  foreigners 
of  the  telephone  as  perfected  in  this  country.  And  our 
sleeping  cars  and  telephones  are  the  things  they  in 
variably  do  criticize.  As  to  the  sleeping  car  there  may 
be  some  justice  in  complaints,  although  it  seems  to  me 
that,  under  the  conditions  for  which  it  is  designed,  the 
Pullman  car  would  be  hard  to  improve  upon.  It  is  the 
necessity  of  going  to  bed  while  traveling  by  rail  that  is 
at  the  bottom  of  the  trouble.  But  when  a  foreigner 
criticizes  the  American  telephone  the  very  thing  he 
criticizes  is  its  perfection.  If  we  had  bad  tele 
phone  service,  and  did  n't  use  the  telephone  much,  it 
would  be  all  right,  according  to  the  European  point 
of  view.  But  as  it  is,  they  say  we  are  the  instrument's 
"slaves." 

That  was  the  complaint  of  Dr.  George  Brandes,  the 
Danish  literary  critic.  "The  telephone  is  the  worst  in 
strument  of  torture  that  ever  existed,"  he  declared. 

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'The  medieval  rack  and  thumb-screws  were  playthings 
compared  with  it." 

Arnold  Bennett,  in  his  "Your  United  States,"  tells 
of  having  permanently  removed  the  receiver  from  the 
telephone  in  his  bedroom  in  a  Chicago  hotel.  His  ac 
tion,  he  declares,  caused  agitation,  not  merely  in  the 
hotel,  but  throughout  the  city. 

"In  response  to  the  prayer  of  a  deputation  from  the 
management,"  he  writes,  "I  restored  the  receiver.  On 
the  horrified  face  of  the  deputation  I  could  read  the  un 
spoken  query:  'Is  it  conceivable  that  you  have  been  in 
this  country  a  month  without  understanding  that  the 
United  States  is  primarily  nothing  but  a  vast  congeries 
of  telephone  cabins  ?' ' 

Now,  the  thing  which  Mr.  Bennett,  Dr.  Brandes,  and 
many  other  distinguished  visitors  from  Europe  seem  to 
fail  to  comprehend  is  this :  that,  being  distinguished  visi 
tors,  and  therefore  sought  after,  they  are  the  telephone's 
especial  victims,  and  consequently  gain  a  wrong  impres 
sion  of  it.  They  themselves  use  it  little  as  a  means  of 
calling  others ;  others  use  it  much  as  a  means  of  calling 
them.  Furthermore,  being  strangers  to  this  highly  per 
fected  instrument,  they  are  also,  quite  naturally 
strangers  to  telephonic  subtleties.  Mr.  Bennett  proved 
his  entire  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  new  science  of  tele 
phone  tact  when  he  tried  to  stop  the  instrument  by  re 
moving  the  receiver.  Any  American  could  have  told 
him  that  all  he  need  have  done  was  to  notify  the  opera 
tor,  at  the  switchboard,  downstairs,  not  to  permit  him 

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to  be  disturbed  until  a  certain  hour.  Or,  if  he  had 
wished  to  do  so,  he  could  have  asked  her  to  sift  his  mes 
sages,  giving  him  only  those  she  deemed  desirable.  He 
would  have  found  her,  I  feel  sure,  as  capable,  on  that 
score,  as  a  well-trained  private  secretary,  for,  among 
the  many  effective  services  of  the  telephone,  none  is 
finer  than  that  given  by  those  capable,  intelligent,  quick- 
thinking  young  women  who  act  as  switchboard  opera 
tors  in  large  hotels  and  offices.  I  am  glad  of  this  op 
portunity  to  make  my  compliments  to  them. 

If  an  American  wishes  to  appreciate  the  telephone,  as 
developed  in  this  country,  he  has  but  to  try  to  use  the 
telephone  in  Europe.  In  London  the  instrument  is  a 
ridiculous,  cumbersome  affair,  looking  as  much  like  an 
enormous  metal  inkwell  as  any  other  thing — the  kind  of 
inkwell  in  which  some  emperor  might  dip  his  pen  before 
signing  his  abdication.  To  call,  you  wind  the  crank 
violently  for  a  time,  then  taking  up  the  receiver  and 
mouthpiece  which  are  attached  to  the  main  instrument 
by  a  cord,  you  begin  calling:  "Are  you  there,  miss? 
Are  you  there?  I  say,  miss,  are  you  there?"  And  the 
question  is  quite  reasonable,  for  half  the  time  "miss" 
does  not  seem  to  be  there.  In  Paris  it  is  worse.  Once, 
while  residing  in  that  city,  I  had  a  telephone  in  my  apart 
ment.  It  was  intended  as  a  convenience,  but  it  turned 
out  to  be  an  irritating  kind  of  joke.  The  first  time  I 
tried  to  call  my  house,  from  the  center  of  town,  it  took 
me  three  times  as  long  to  get  the  connection  as  it  took 
me  to  get  New  York  from  Kansas  City.  In  the  begin- 

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ning  I  thought  myself  the  victim  of  ill  luck,  but  I  soon 
came  to  understand  that  was  not  the  case — or,  rather, 
that  the  ill  luck  was  of  a  kind  experienced  by  all  users  of 
the  telephone  in  Paris.  The  service  there  is  simply 
chaotic.  It  is  actually  true  that  I  once  dispatched  a 
messenger  on  a  bicycle,  calling  my  house  on  the  phone, 
immediately  afterward,  and  that  the  messenger  had  ar 
rived  with  the  note,  after  having  ridden  a  good  two 
miles,  through  traffic,  by  the  time  I  succeeded  in  talking 
over  the  wire.  However,  in  the  interim  I  had  talked 
with  almost  every  other  residence  in  Paris. 

The  telephones  in  France  and  England  are  controlled 
by  the  government.  If  that  accounts  for  the  service 
given,  then  I  hope  the  government  in  this  country  will 
never  take  them  over.  Bureaucracy  makes  the  Conti 
nental  railroads  inferior  to  ours,  and  I  have  no  doubt  it 
is  equally  responsible  for  telephone  conditions.  Bu 
reaucracy,  as  I  have  experienced  it,  feels  itself  in 
trenched  in  office,  and  is  consequently  likely  to  be  in 
different  to  complaint  and  to  the  requirements  of 
progress.  When  I  called  New  York  from  Kansas 
City  I  was  talking  within  ten  minutes,  and  when, 
later  on,  I  called  New  York  from  Denver,  it  took  but 
little  longer,  and  I  heard,  and  made  myself  heard,  al 
most  as  though  conversing  with  some  one  in  the  next 
room.  As  I  reflect  upon  the  countless  services  per 
formed  for  me  by  the  telephone,  upon  these  travels,  and 
upon  the  very  different  sort  of  service  I  should  have  had 
abroad,  I  bless  the  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph 

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Company  with  fervent  blessings.  And  if  I  said  about 
it  all  the  things  I  really  think,  I  fear  the  reader  might 
suspect  me  of  having  received  a  bribe.  For  I  am  aware 
that,  in  speaking  well  of  any  corporation  I  am  flying  in 
the  face  of  precedent  and  public  opinion. 


Toward  noon,  the  pall  of  smoke  and  fog  which  had 
blanketed  the  city,  vanished  on  a  fresh  breeze  from  the 
prairies,  and  my  companion  and  I,  much  inspirited,  set 
forth  on  foot  to  see  what  the  downtown  streets  of  Kan 
sas  City  had  to  offer.  We  had  gone  hardly  a  block  be 
fore  \ve  realized  that  our  earlier  impressions  of  the  place 
had  been  ill-founded.  We  had  arrived  in  the  least 
agreeable  portion  of  the  city,  and  had  not,  hitherto,  seen 
any  of  the  built-up,  well-paved  streets.  "Petticoat 
Lane" — the  fashionable  shopping  district  on  Eleventh 
Street  between  Main  Street  and  Grand  Avenue — has  a 
metropolitan  appearance,  and  the  wider  avenues,  with 
their  well-built  skyscrapers,  tell  a  story  of  substantiality 
and  progress.  But  the  most  striking  thing  to  us,  upon 
that  walk,  lay  not  in  the  great  buildings  already  stand 
ing,  but  in  the  embryonic  structures  everywhere.  All 
over  Kansas  City  old  buildings  are  coming  down  to  make 
place  for  new  ones ;  hills  of  clay  are  being  gouged  away 
and  foundations  dug;  steel  frames  are  shooting  up. 
Never,  before  or  since,  have  I  sensed,  as  I  sensed  that 
day,  a  city's  growth.  It  seemed  to  me  that  I  could  feel 
expansion  in  the  very  ground  beneath  my  feet.  Look- 

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ing  upon  these  multifarious  activities  was  like  looking 
through  an  enormous  magnifying  glass  at  some  gigantic 
ant  hill,  where  thousands  upon  thousands  of  workers 
were  rushing  about,  digging,  carrying,  constructing,  all 
in  breathless  haste.  Nor  was  the  incidental  music  lack 
ing;  the  air  was  ringing  with  the  symphony  of  work — 
the  music  of  brick  walls  falling,  of  drills  digging  at  the 
earth,  and  of  automatic  riveters  clattering  their  swift, 
metallic  song,  high  up  among  the  tall,  steel  frames, 
where  presently  would  stand  desks,  and  filing  cabinets, 
and  typewriter  machines. 

"Did  you  ever  feel  a  city  growing  so?"  I  asked  of  my 
companion. 

"Grow!"  he  repeated.  "Why  it  has  grown  so  fast 
they  have  n't  had  time  to  name  their  streets." 

The  statement  appeared  true.  We  had  looked  for 
street  signs  at  all  corners,  but  had  seen  none.  Later, 
however,  we  discovered  that  the  streets  did  have  names. 
But  as  there  are  no  signs,  I  conclude  that  the  present 
names  are  only  tentative,  and  that  when  Kansas  City 
gets  through  building,  she  will  name  her  streets  in  sober 
earnest,  and  mark  them  in  order  that  strangers  may 
more  readily  find  their  way. 

The  "slogan"  of  Kansas  City  suggests  that  of  De 
troit.  Detroit  says:  "In  Detroit  life  is  worth  living." 
Kansas  City  is  less  boastful,  but  more  aspiring.  "Make 
it  a  good  place  to  live  in,"  she  says. 

As  nearly  as  I  can  like  the  "slogan"  of  any  city,  I  like 
that  one.  I  like  it  because  it  is  not  vainglorious,  -and 

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because  it  does  not  attempt  cheap  alliteration.  It  is  not 
"smart-alecky"  at  all,  but  has,  rather,  the  sound  of  some 
thing  genuinely  felt.  And  I  believe  it  is  felt.  There  is 
every  evidence  that  Kansas  City's  "slogan"  is  a  promis 
sory  note — a  note  which,  it  may  be  added,  she  is  paying 
off  in  a  handsome  manner,  by  improving  herself  rapidly 
in  countless  ways. 

Perhaps  the  first  of  her  improvements  to  strike  the 
visitor  is  her  system  of  parks.  I  am  informed  that  the 
parked  boulevards  of  Kansas  City  exceed  in  mileage 
those  of  any  other  American  city.  These  boulevards, 
connecting  the  various  parks  and  forming  circuits  run 
ning  around  and  through  the  town,  do  go  a  long  way 
toward  making  it  "a  good  place  to  live  in."  Kansas 
City  has  every  right  to  be  proud,  not  only  of  her  parks, 
but  of  herself  for  having  had  the  intelligence  and  energy 
to  make  them.  What  if  assessments  have  been  high? 
Increased  property  values  take  care  of  that;  the  worst 
of  the  work  and  the  expense  is  over,  and  Kansas  City 
has  lifted  itself  by  its  own  bootstraps  from  ugliness  to 
beauty.  How  much  better  it  is  to  have  done  the  whole 
thing  quickly — to  have  made  the  gigantic  effort  and  at 
tained  the  parks  and  boulevards  at  what  amounts  to  one 
great  municipal  bound — than  to  have  dawdled  and 
dreamed  along  as  St.  Louis  and  so  many  other  cities 
have  done. 

The  Central  Traffic  Parkway  of  St.  Louis  is,  as  has 
been  said  in  an  earlier  chapter,  still  on  paper  only.  But 
the  Paseo,  and  West  Pennway,  and  Penn  Valley  Park, 

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in  Kansas  City,  are  all  splendid  realities,  created  in  an 
amazingly  brief  space  of  years.  To  make  the  Paseo 
and  West  Pennway,  the  city  cut  through  blocks  and 
blocks,  tearing  down  old  houses  or  moving  them  away, 
with  the  result  that  dilapidated,  disagreeable  neighbor 
hoods  have  been  turned  into  charming  residence  dis 
tricts.  In  the  making  of  Penn  Valley  Park,  the  same 
thing  occurred:  the  property  was  acquired  at  a  cost  of 
about  $800,000,  hundreds  of  houses  were  removed, 
drives  were  built,  trees  planted.  The  park  is  now  a 
show  place;  both  because  of  the  lesson  it  offers  other 
cities,  and  the  splendid  view,  from  its  highest  point, 
of  the  enterprising  city  which  created  it. 

Another  spectacular  panorama  of  Kansas  City  is  to 
be  seen  from  Observation  Point  on  the  western  side  of 
town,  but  the  finest  views  of  all  (and  among  the  finest 
to  be  seen  in  any  city  in  the  world)  are  those  which  un 
roll  themselves  below  Scaritt  Point,  the  Cliff  Drive,  and 
Kersey  Coates  Drive.  Much  as  the  Boulevard  Lafay 
ette  skirts  the  hills  beside  the  Hudson  River,  these  drives 
make  their  way  along  the  upper  edge  of  the  lofty 
cliffs  which  rise  majestically  above  the  Missouri  River 
bottoms.  Not  only  is  their  elevation  much  greater  than 
that  of  the  New  York  boulevard,  but  the  view  is  in 
finitely  more  extensive  and  dramatic,  though  perhaps 
less  "pretty."  Looking  down  from  Kersey  Coates 
Drive,  one  sees  a  long  sweep  of  the  Missouri,  winding 
its  course  between  the  sandy  shores  which  it  so  loves  to 
inundate.  Beyond,  the  whole  world  seems  to  be  spread 

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Looking  down  from  Kersey  Coates  Drive,  one  sees  .  .  .  the  appalling 
web  of  railroad  tracks,  crammed  with  freight  cars,  which  seen  through  a 
softening  haze  of  smoke,  resemble  a  relief  map — strange,  vast,  and  pictorial 


KANSAS  CITY 

out — farms  and  woodland,   reaching  off  into  infinity. 

Below,  in  the  nearer  foreground,  at  the  bottom  of  the 
cliff,  is  the  mass  of  factories,  warehouses  and  packing 
houses,  and  the  appalling  web  of  railroad  tracks, 
crammed  with  freight  cars,  which  form  the  Kansas  City 
industrial  district,  and  which,  reduced  by  distance,  and 
seen  through  a  softening  haze  of  smoke,  resemble  a  re 
lief  map — strange,  vast,  and  pictorial.  Beyond,  more 
distant  and  more  hazy,  lies  the  adjoining  city,  Kansas 
City,  Kas.,  all  its  ugliness  converted  into  beauty  by  the 
smoke  which,  whatever  sins  it  may  commit  against 
white  linen,  spreads  a  poetic  pall  over  the  scenes  of  in 
dustry — yes,  and  over  the  "wettest  block/'  that  solid 
wall  of  saloons  with  which  the  "wet"  state  of  Missouri 
so  significantly  fortifies  her  frontier  against  the  "dry" 
state,  Kansas. 

So  far,  Kansas  City  has  been  too  busy  with  her  money- 
making  and  her  physical  improvement,  to  give  much 
thought  to  art.  However,  the  day  will  come,  and  very 
soon,  when  the  question  of  mural  decoration  for  some 
great  public  building  will  arise.  And  when  that  day  does 
come  I  hope  that  some  one  will  rise  up  and  remind  the 
city  that  the  decorations  which,  figuratively,  adorn  her 
own  walls,  may  well  be  considered  as  a  subject  for  mural 
paintings.  I  should  like  to  see  a  great  room  which,  in 
stead  of  being  surrounded  by  a  frieze  of  symbolic  fig 
ures,  very  much  like  every  other  frieze  of  symbolic  fig 
ures  in  the  land,  should  show  the  splendid  sweep  of  the 
Missouri  River,  and  the  great  maze  of  the  freight  yards, 

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and  the  wonderful  vistas  to  be  seen  from  the  cliffs,  and 
the  rich,  rolling  farm  land  beyond.  How  much  better 
that  would  be  than  one  of  those  trite  things  representing 
Justice  or  Commerce,  as  a  female  figure,  enthroned,  with 
Industry,  a  male  figure,  brown  and  half-naked,  wearing 
a  leather  apron,  and  beating  on  an  anvil,  at  one  side,  and 
Agriculture,  working  with  a  hoe,  at  the  other.  Yes, 
how  much  better  it  would  be ;  and  how  much  harder  to 
find  the  painter  who  could  do  it  as  it  should  be  done. 

In  view  of  the  enormous  activity  with  which  Kansas 
City  has  pursued  the  matter  of  municipal  improvement, 
and  in  view  of  the  contrasting  somnolence  of  St.  Louis, 
it  is  amusing  to  reflect  upon  the  somewhat  patronizing 
attitude  assumed  by  the  latter  toward  the  former.  Be 
ing  the  metropolis  of  Missouri,  St.  Louis  has  the  air, 
sometimes,  of  patting  Kansas  City  on  the  back,  in  the 
same  superior  manner  that  St.  Paul  assumed,  in  times 
gone  by,  toward  Minneapolis.  It  will  be  remembered, 
however,  that  one  day  St.  Paul  woke  up  to  find  her 
self  no  longer  the  metropolis  of  Minnesota.  Young 
Minneapolis  had  come  up  behind  and  passed  her  in 
the  night.  As  I  have  said  before,  Kansas  City  bears 
more  than  one  resemblance  to  Minneapolis.  Like 
Minneapolis,  she  is  a  strong  young  city,  vying  for  State 
supremacy  with  another  city  which  is  old,  rich,  and  con 
servative.  Will  the  history  of  the  Minnesota  cities  be 
repeated  in  Missouri?  If  some  day  it  happens  so,  I 
shall  not  be  surprised. 


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CHAPTER  XXIII 
ODDS  AND  ENDS 

THE  quality  in  Kansas  City  which  struck  Baron 
d'Estournelles  de  Constant,  the  French  states 
man  and  peace  advocate,  was  the  enormous 
growth  and  vitality  of  the  place.  "Town  Development" 
quotes  the  Baron  as  having  called  Kansas  City  a  "cite 
champignon"  but  I  am  sure  that  in  saying  that  he  had 
in  mind  the  growth  of  the  mushroom  rather  than  its 
fiber;  for  though  Kansas  City  grew  from  nothing  to  a 
population  of  250,000  within  a  space  of  fifty  years,  her 
fiber  is  exceptionally  firm,  and  her  prosperity,  having 
been  built  upon  the  land,  is  sound. 

That  feeling  of  nearness  to  the  soil  that  I  met  there 
was  new  to  me.  I  felt  it  in  many  ways.  Much  of  the  cas 
ual  conversation  I  heard  dealt  with  cattle  raising,  farm 
ing,  the  weather,  and  the  promise  as  to  crops.  Business 
men  and  well-to-do  women  in  the  shopping  districts  re 
semble  people  one  may  see  in  any  other  city,  but  away 
from  the  heart  of  town  one  encounters  numerous 
farmers  and  their  wives  who  have  driven  into  town  in 
their  old  buggies,  farm  wagons,  or  little  motors  to  shop 
and  trade,  just  as  though  Kansas  City  were  some  little 
county  seat,  instead  of  a  city  of  the  size  of  Edinburgh. 

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In  earlier  chapters  I  have  referred  to  likenesses  be 
tween  cities  and  individuals.  Cities  not  only  have  traits 
of  character,  like  men,  but  certain  regions  have  their 
costumes.  Collars,  for  example,  tend  to  become  lower 
toward  the  Mississippi  River,  and  black  string  ties  ap 
pear.  Missouri  likes  black  suits — older  men  in  the 
smaller  towns  seem  to  be  in  a  perpetual  state  of  mourn 
ing,  like  those  Breton  women  whose  men  are  so  often 
drowned  at  sea  that  they  never  take  the  trouble  to  re 
move  their  black. 

Western  watch  chains  incline  to  massiveness,  and  are 
more  likely  than  not  to  have  dangling  from  them  large 
golden  emblems  with  mysterious  devices.  Likewise  the 
western  buttonhole  is  almost  sure  to  bloom  with  the 
insignia  of  some  secret  order. 

Many  western  men  wear  diamond  rings — pieces  of 
jewelry  which  the  east  allots  to  ladies  or  to  gamblers 
and  vulgarians.  When  I  inquired  about  this  I  heard  a 
piece  of  interesting  lore.  I  was  informed  that  the  dia- 
mong  ring  was  something  more  than  an  adornment  to 
the  western  man;  that  it  was,  in  reality,  the  survival 
of  a  fashion  which  originated  for  the  most  practical 
reasons.  A  diamond  is  not  only  convenient  to  carry 
but  it  may  readily  be  converted  into  cash.  So,  in  the 
wilder  western  days,  men  got  into  the  way  of  wearing 
diamond  rings  as  a  means  of  raising  funds  for  gambling 
on  short  notice,  or  for  making  a  quick  getaway  from 
the  scene  of  some  affray. 

Whether  they  are  entirely  aware  of  it  or  not,  the  well- 

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dressed  men  of  eastern  cities  are,  in  the  matter  of  cos 
tume,  dominated  to  a  large  extent  by  London.  The 
English  mode,  however,  does  not  reach  far  west. 
Clothing  in  the  west  is  all  American.  Take,  for  ex 
ample,  coats.  The  prevailing  style,  at  the  moment, 
in  London  and  in  the  eastern  cities  of  this  country 
happens  to  run  to  a  snugness  of  fit  amounting  to 
actual  tightness.  Little  does  this  disturb  the  western 
man.  His  coat  is  cut  loose  and  is  broad  across  the 
shoulders.  And  let  me  add  that  I  believe  his  vision  is 
"cut"  broader,  too.  Westerners,  far  more  than  east 
erners,  it  seems  to  me,  sense  the  United  States — the  size 
of  it  and  what  it  really  is.  Time  and  again,  talking 
with  them,  it  has  come  to  me  that  their  eyes  are  focused 
for  a  longer  range :  that,  looking  off  toward  the  horizon, 
they  see  a  thousand  miles  of  farms  stretched  out  before 
them  or  a  thousand  miles  of  mountain  peaks. 

And  even  as  coats  and  comprehension  seem  to  widen 
in  the  west,  so  hats  and  hearts  grow  softer.  The  derby 
plays  an  unimportant  part.  In  Chicago,  to  be  sure,  it 
makes  a  feeble  effort  for  supremacy,  but  west  of  there 
it  dies  an  ignominious  death  beneath  an  avalanche  of 
soft  felt  hats.  Felt  hats  around  Chicago  seem,  however, 
to  lack  full-blown  western  opulence.  Compared  with 
hats  in  the  real  middle  west,  they  are  stingy  little 
headpieces.  When  we  were  in  Chicago  that  city  seemed 
to  be  the  center  of  a  section  in  which  a  peculiar  style  of 
hat  was  prominent — a  blue  felt  with  a  velvet  band.  But 
that,  of  course,  was  merely  a  passing  fashion.  Not  so 

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the  hats  a  little  farther  west.  The  Mississippi  River 
marks  the  beginning  of  the  big  black  hat  belt.  The  big 
black  hat  is  passionately  adored  in  Missouri  and  Kansas. 
It  never  changes;  never  goes  out  of  fashion.  And  it 
may  be  further  noted  that  many  of  these  somber,  monu 
mental,  soft  black  hats,  with  their  high  crowns  and  wide 
spread  brims,  have  been  sent  from  these  two  western 
states  to  Washington,  D.  C. 

At  Kansas  City  there  begins  another  hat  belt.  The 
Missouri  hat  remains,  but  its  supremacy  begins  to  be 
disputed  by  an  even  larger  hat,  of  similar  shape  but  dif 
ferent  color.  The  big  black,  tan  or  putty-color  hat  be 
gins  to  show  at  Kansas  City.  Also  one  sees,  now  and 
again,  upon  the  streets  a  cowboy  hat  with  a  flat  brim. 
When  I  mentioned  that  to  a  Kansas  City  man  he  did  n't 
seem  to  like  it.  With  passionate  vehemence  he  declared 
that  cowboy  hats  were  never  known  to  adorn  the  heads 
of  Kansas  City  men — that  they  only  came  to  Kansas 
City  on  the  heads  of  itinerant  cattlemen.  Well,  that  is 
doubtless  true.  But  I  did  not  say  the  Mayor  of  Kansas 
City  wore  one.  I  only  said  I  saw  such  hats  upon  the 
street.  And — however  they  got  there,  and  wherever 
they  came  from — those  hats  looked  good  to  me! 

Some  of  the  bronzed  cattlemen  one  sees  in  Kansas 
City,  though  they  yield  to  civilization  to  the  extent  of 
wearing  shirts,  have  not  yet  sunk  to  the  slavery  of  col 
lars.  They  do  not  wear  "chaps"  and  revolvers,  it  is 
true,  but  they  are  clearly  plainsmen,  and  some  of  them 
sport  colored  handkerchiefs  about  their  necks,  knotted 

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in  the  back,  and  hanging  in  loose  folds  in  front.  Once 
or  twice,  upon  my  walks,  I  saw  an  Indian  as  well,  though 
not  a  really  first-class  moving-picture  Indian.  That  is 
too  much  to  expect.  Such  Indians  as  one  may  meet  in 
Kansas  City  are  civilized  and  citified  to  a  sad  degree. 
Nor  are  the  Mexicans,  many  of  whom  are  employed  as 
laborers,  up  to  specifications  as  to  picturesqueness. 

I  feel  it  particularly  necessary  to  state  these  truths, 
disillusioning  though  they  may  be  to  certain  youthful 
readers  who  may  treasure  fond  hopes  of  finding,  in 
Kansas  City,  something  of  that  wild  and  woolly  fascina 
tion  which  the  cinematograph  so  often  pictures.  True, 
a  large  gray  wolf  was  killed  by  a  Kansas  City  policeman 
last  winter,  after  it  had  run  down  Linwood  Boulevard, 
biting  people,  but  that  does  not  happen  every  day,  and 
it  is  recorded  that  the  youth  who  recently  appeared  on 
the  Kansas  City  streets,  dressed  in  "chaps"  and  carrying 
a  revolver  with  which  he  shot  at  the  feet  of  pedestrians, 
to  make  them  dance,  declared  himself,  when  taken  up  by 
the  police,  to  have  recently  arrived  from  Philadelphia, 
where  he  had  obtained  his  ideas  of  western  manners 
from  the  "movies." 

I  mention  this  incident  because,  after  having  labeled 
Kansas  City  "Western,"  I  wish  to  leave  no  loopholes 
for  misunderstanding.  The  West  of  Bret  Harte  and 
Jesse  James  is  gone.  All  that  is  left  of  it  is  legend. 
When  I  speak  of  a  western  city  I  think  of  a  city  young, 
not  altogether  formed,  but  full  of  dauntless  energy. 
And  when  I  speak  of  western  people  I  think  of  people 

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who  possess,  in  larger  measure  than  any  other  people  I 
have  met,  the  solid  traits  of  character  which  make  hu 
man  beings  admirable. 

Kansas  City  is  said  to  be  more  American  than  any 
other  city  of  its  size  in  the  United  States.  Eighty  per 
cent,  of  its  people  are  American  born,  of  either  native  or 
foreign  parents.  Its  inhabitants  are  either  pioneers,  de 
scendants  of  pioneers,  or  young  people  who  have  moved 
there  for  the  sake  of  opportunity.  This  makes  for 
sturdy  stock  as  inevitably  as  close  association  with  the 
soil  makes  for  sturdy  simplicity  of  character.  The 
western  man,  as  I  try  to  visualize  him  as  a  type,  is  gen 
uine,  generous,  direct,  whole-hearted,  sympathetic,  en 
ergetic,  strong,  and — I  say  it  not  without  some  hesita 
tion — sometimes  a  little  crude,  with  a  kind  of  crudeness 
which  has  about  it  something  very  lovable.  I  fear  that 
Kansas  City  may  not  like  the  word  "crude/'  even  as  I 
have  qualified  it,  but,  however  she  may  feel,  I  hope  she 
will  not  charge  the  use  of  it  to  eastern  snobbishness  in 
me,  for  that  is  a  quality  that  I  detest  as  much  as  any 
body  does — a  quality  compared  with  which  crudeness  be 
comes  a  primary  virtue.  No;  when  I  say  "crude"  I  say 
it  respectfully,  and  I  am  ready  to  admit  in  the  same 
breath  that  I  dislike  the  word  myself,  because  it  seems 
to  imply  more  than  I  really  wish  to  say,  just  as  such  a 
word  as  "unseasoned"  seems  to  imply  less. 

You  see,  Kansas  City  is  a  very  young  and  very  great 
center  of  business.  It  is  still  engrossed  in  making 
money,  but,  being  so  exceptionally  sturdy,  it  has  found 

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time,  outside  of  business  hours,  as  it  were,  to  create  its 
parks  and  boulevards — much  as  some  young  business 
man  comes  home  after  a  hard  day's  work  and  cuts  the 
grass  in  his  front  yard,  and  waters  it,  and  even  plants  a 
little  garden  for  his  wife  and  children  and  himself.  He 
attends  to  the  requirements  of  his  business,  his  family, 
his  lawn  and  garden,  and  to  his  duties  as  a  citizen.  And 
that  is  about  all  that  he  has  time  to  do.  He  has  the 
Christian  virtues,  but  none  of  the  un-Christian  sophisti 
cations.  Art,  to  him,  probably  signifies  a  "fancy  head" 
by  Harrison  Fisher;  literature,  a  book  by  Harold  Bell 
Wright  or  Gene  Stratton  Porter;  music,  a  sentimental 
ballad  or  a  ragtime  tune  played  on  the  Victor;  archi 
tecture — well,  I  think  that  means  his  own  house. 

And  what  is  his  own  house  like?  If  he  be  a  young 
and  fairly  successful  Kansas  City  business  man,  it  is, 
first  of  all,  probably  a  solid,  well-built  house.  Very 
likely  it  is  built  of  brick  and  is  "detached"-— just  barely 
detached — and  faces  a  parked  boulevard  or  a  homelike 
residence  street  which  is  lined  with  other  solid  little 
houses,  like  his  own.  Now,  while  the  homes  of  this 
class  are,  I  think,  better  built  and  more  attractive  than 
homes  of  corresponding  cost  in  some  older  cities — 
Cleveland,  for  example — and  while  the  streets  are  pleas- 
anter,  there  is  a  sort  of  standardized  look  about 
these  houses  which  is,  I  think,  unfortunate.  The  thing 
they  lack  is  individuality.  Whole  rows  of  them  sug 
gest  that  they  were  all  designed  by  the  same  altogether 
honest,  but  somewhat  inartistic,  architect,  who,  having 

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hit  on  one  or  two  good  plans,  kept  repeating  them,  ad 
infinitum,  with  only  minor  changes,  such  as  the  use  of 
vari-colored  brick,  for  "character/'  True,  they  are 
monuments  to  the  esthetic,  compared  with  the  old 
brownstone  blocks  of  New  York  City,  or  the  Queen 
Anne  blocks  of  cities  such  as  Cleveland,  but  it  must  be 
remembered  that  New  York's  brownstone  period,  and 
the  wooden  Queen  Anne  period,  date  back  a  good  many 
years,  whereas  'these  Kansas  City  houses  are  new. 
And  it  is  in  our  new  houses  that  we  Americans  have 
had  a  chance  to  show  (and  are  showing)  the  improve 
ment  in  our  national  taste.  I  do  not  complain  that  the 
domestic  architecture  of  Kansas  City  represents  no  im 
provement;  I  complain  only  that  the  improvement 
shown  is  not  so  great  as  it  should  be — that  Kansas  City 
residences,  of  all  classes,  inexpensive  and  expensive, 
in  town  and  in  the  suburban  developments,  are  gen 
erally  characterized  by  solidity,  rather  than  architec 
tural  merit.  The  less  expensive  houses  lack  distinction 
in  about  the  same  way  that  rows  of  good  ready-made 
overcoats  may  be  said  to  lack  it,  when  compared  with 
overcoats  made  to  order  by  expensive  tailors.  The 
more  costly  houses  are  for  the  most  part  ordinary — and 
some  of  them  are  worse  than  that. 

I  am  well  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  foregoing  state 
ments  are  altogether  likely  to  surprise  and  annoy  Kan 
sas  City,  for  if  there  is  one  thing,  beyond  her  parks  and 
boulevards,  upon  which  she  congratulates  herself  pecu 
liarly,  it  is  her  homes.  I  could  detect  that,  both  in  the 

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pride  with  which  the  homes  were  shown  to  me  and  in 
the  sad  silences  with  which  my  very  mildly  critical  com 
ments  on  some  houses,  were  received.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  quite  true  that  Kansas  City  very  evidently  needs  a 
good  domestic  architect  or  two ;  and  if  she  does  not  par 
don  me  just  now  for  saying  so,  I  must  console  myself 
with  the  thought  that,  ten  or  fifteen  years  hence,  she 
will  admit  that  what  I  said  was  true. 

Kansas  City  ought  to  be  a  good  place  for  architects. 
There  is  a  lot  of  money  there,  and,  as  I  have  already 
said,  a  great  amount  of  building  is  in  progress.  One 
of  the  most  interesting  real  estate  developments  I  have 
ever  seen  is  taking  place  in  what  is  called  the  Country 
Club  District,  where  a  tract  of  1,200  acres,  which,  only 
five  or  six  years  ago,  was  farm  land,  has  been  attrac 
tively  laid  out  and  very  largely  built  up  on  ingenious, 
restricted  lines.  In  the  portion  of  this  district  known 
as  Sunset  Hill,  no  house  costing  less  than  $25,000  may 
be  erected.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  number  of  houses  on 
Sunset  Hill  show  an  investment,  in  building  alone,  of 
from  $50,000  to  $100,000.  In  other  portions  of  the 
tract  restrictions  are  lower,  and  still  lower,  until  finally 
one  comes  to  a  suburban  section  closely  built  up  with 
homes,  some  of  which  cost  as  little  as  $3,000 — which  is 
the  lowest  restriction  in  the  entire  district. 

I  visited  the  new  Union  Station,  which  will  be  in 
operation  this  winter.  It  is  as  fine  as  the  old  station  is 
atrocious.  I  was  informed  that  it  cost  between  six  and 

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seven  millions,  and  that  it  is  exceeded  in  size  only  by 
the  Grand  Central  and  Pennsylvania  terminals  in  New 
York.  The  waiting  room  will,  however,  be  the  largest 
in  the  world.  The  gentleman  who  showed  me  the  sta 
tion  gave  me  the  curious  information  that  Kansas  City 
does  the  largest  Pullman  business  of  any  American  city, 
and  that  it  also  handles  the  most  baggage.  He  at 
tributed  these  facts  to  the  great  distances  to  be  traveled 
in  that  part  of  the  country  and  also  to  the  prosperity  of 
the  farmers. 

"You  see,"  he  said,  "Kansas  City  has  the  largest  un 
disputed  tributary  trade  territory  of  any  city  in  the 
country.  We  are  not,  in  reality,  a  Missouri  city  so 
much  as  a  Kansas  one.  Indeed  Kansas  City  was  orig 
inally  intended  to  be  in  Kansas  and  was  really  diverted 
into  Missouri  when  the  government  survey  established 
the  line  between  the  two  states.  We  reach  out  into 
Missouri  for  some  business,  but  Kansas  is  our  real  ter 
ritory,  as  well  as  Oklahoma  and  Arkansas.  We  get  a 
good  share  of  business  from  Nebraska  and  Iowa,  too. 
These  facts,  plus  the  fact  that  we  are  in  the  very  center 
of  the  great  American  feed  lot,  account  for  our  big 
bank  clearings.  In  bank  clearings  we  come  sixth,  St. 
Louis  being  fifth,  Pittsburgh  seventh,  and  Detroit 
eighth.  And  we  are  not  to  be  compared  in  population 
with  any  of  those  cities. 

"Almost  all  our  greatest  activities  have  to  do  with 
farms  and  produce.  We  are  first  as  a  market  place  for 
hay  and  yellow  pine;  second  as  a  packing  center  and  a 

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mule  market;  third  in  lumber,  flour,  poultry,  and  eggs, 
in  the  volume  of  our  telegraph  business,  and  in  auto 
mobile  sales.  And,  of  course,  you  probably  know  that 
we  lead  in  the  sale  of  agricultural  implements  and  in 
stockers  and  feeders." 

At  that  my  companion,  who,  because  he  resided  for  a 
long  time  in  Albany,  N.  Y.,  prides  himself  upon  his 
knowledge  of  farming,  broke  in. 

"I  suppose/'  said  he,  "that  instead  of  drawing  stock 
ers  and  feeders  with  horses,  they  use  gasoline  motors 
nowadays  ?" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  the  Kansas  City  man,  "they  walk." 

'Walk?"  exclaimed  my  companion.  "They  have 
made  an  advance  in  agricultural  implements  since  my 
day  if  they  have  succeeded  in  making  them  walk!" 

"I  'm  not  speaking  of  agricultural  implements,"  said 
our  informant.  "I  'm  speaking  of  stockers  and  feed 


ers." 


"What  are  stockers  and  feeders?"  I  asked. 

"Cattle,"  he  said.  "There  are  three  kinds  of  cattle 
marketed  here;  first,  fat  cattle,  for  slaughter;  second, 
stockers,  which  are  young  cows  used  for  stocking  farms 
and  ranches;  third,  feeders,  or  grassfed  steers,  which 
are  sold  to  be  fattened  on  grain,  for  killing.  In  stockers 
and  feeders  we  lead  the  world;  in  fat  cattle  we  are  sec 
ond  only  to  Chicago." 


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CHAPTER  XXIV 
COLONEL  NELSON'S  "STAR" 

' ^    11      7 HAT  do  you  expect  to  see  in  Kansas  City?" 
\ /\/     I  was  asked  by  the  president  of  a  trust 

V    V       company. 

"I  want  to  see  the  new  Union  Station,"  I  said,  "and 
I  hope  also  to  meet  Colonel  Nelson." 

He  smiled.  "One  's  as  big  as  the  other,"  was  his 
comment. 

That  is  a  mild  statement  of  the  case.  The  power  of 
Colonel  Nelson  is  something  unique,  and  his  newspaper, 
the  Kansas  City  "Star,"  is,  I  believe,  alone  in  the  posi 
tion  it  holds  among  American  dailies. 

Like  all  powerful  newspapers,  it  is  the  expression  of 
a  single  individuality.  The  "Star"  expresses  Colonel 
William  Rockhill  Nelson  as  definitely  as  the  New  York 
"Sun"  used  to  express  Charles  A.  Dana,  as  the  New 
York  "Tribune"  expressed  Horace  Greeley,  as  the 
"Herald"  expressed  Bennett,  as  the  Chicago  "Tribune" 
expressed  Medill,  as  the  "Courier-Journal"  expresses 
Watterson,  as  the  Pulitzer  papers  continue  to  express 
the  late  Joseph  Pulitzer,  and  as  the  Hearst  papers  ex 
press  William  Randolph  Hearst. 

Besides  circulating  widely  throughout  Kansas, 
Oklahoma,  Arkansas,  and  western  Missouri,  the  "Star" 

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COLONEL  NELSON'S  "STAR" 

so  dominates  Kansas  City  that  last  year  it  sold,  in  the 
city,  many  thousand  papers  a  day  in  excess  of  the  num 
ber  of  houses  there.  Other  papers  have  been  started 
to  combat  it,  but  without  appreciable  effect.  The 
"Star"  continues  upon  its  majestic  course,  towing  the 
wagon  of  Kansas  City. 

To  me  the  greatest  thing  about  the  "Star"  is  its  en 
tire  freedom  from  yellowness.  Its  appearance  is  as 
conservative  as  that  of  the  New  York  "Evening  Post." 
It  prints  no  scareheads  and  no  half-tone  pictures,  such 
pictures  as  it  uses  being  redrawn  in  line,  so  that  they 
print  sharply.  Another  characteristic  of  the  paper  is 
its  highly  localized  flavor.  It  handles  relatively  little 
European  news,  and  even  the  doings  of  New  York  and 
Chicago  seem  to  impress  it  but  slightly.  It  is  the  or 
gan  of  the  "feed  lot,"  the  "official  gazette"  of  the  capital 
of  the  Southwest. 

While  contemplating  the  "Star"  I  was  reminded  of  a 
conversation  held  many  weeks  before  in  Buffalo  with  a 
very  thoughtful  gentleman. 

"The  great  trouble  with  the  American  people/'  he  de 
clared,  "is  that  they  are  not  yet  a  thinking  people." 

"What  makes  you  believe  that?"  I  asked. 

"The  first  proof  of  it,"  he  returned,  "is  that  they 
read  yellow  journals." 

It  is  a  notable  and  admirable  fact  that  the  people  of 
Kansas — the  State  which  Colonel  Nelson  considers  par 
ticularly  his  own — do  not  read  the  "yellows"  to  any  con 
siderable  extent.  ("I  might  stop  publishing  this  pa- 

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per/'  Colonel  Nelson  said,  "but  it  will  never  get  yel 
low."  And  later:  "Anybody  can  print  the  news,  but 
the  'Star'  tries  to  build  things  up.  That  is  what  a  news 
paper  is  for.") 

Even  the  "Star"  building  is  highly  individualized. 
It  is  a  great  solid  pile  of  tapestry  brick,  suggesting  a 
castle  in  Siena.  In  one  end  are  the  presses ;  in  the  other 
the  business  and  editorial  departments.  The  editorial 
offices  are  in  a  single  vast  room,  in  a  corner  of  which 
the  Colonel's  flat-top  desk  is  placed.  There  are  no  pri 
vate  offices.  The  city  editor  and  his  reporters  have 
their  desks  at  the  center,  under  a  skylight,  and  the  edi 
torial  writers,  telegraph  editor,  Sunday  editor,  and  all 
the  other  editors  are  distributed  about  the  room's  peri 
meter. 

Before  talking  with  Colonel  Nelson  I  inquired  into 
some  of  the  reforms  brought  about  through  the  efforts 
of  the  "Star."  The  list  of  them  is  formidable.  Many 
persons  attributed  the  existence  of  the  present  park 
and  boulevard  system  to  this  great  newspaper;  among 
other  things  mentioned  were  the  following :  the  improve 
ment  of  schools;  the  abolition  of  quack  doctors,  medi 
cal  museums  and  fortune  tellers ;  the  building  of  county 
roads;  the  elimination  of  bill-boards  from  the  boule 
vards  ;  the  boat  line  navigating  the  Missouri  River ;  the 
introduction  of  commission  government  in  Kansas  City, 
Kas.  (which,  I  was  informed,  was  the  first  city  of  its 
size  to  have  commission  government) ;  the  municipal 
ownership  of  waterworks  in  both  Kansas  Cities.  More 

304 


Colonel  Nelson  is  a  "character."  Even  if  he  did  n't 
own  the  "Star,"  ...  he  would  be  a  "character."  .  .  . 
I  have  called  him  a  volcano ;  he  is  more  like  one  than 
any  other  man  I  have  ever  met 


COLONEL  NELSON'S  "STAR" 

recently  the  "Star"  has  been  fighting  for  what  it  terms 
"free  justice" — that  is,  the  dispensing  of  justice  with 
out  costs  or  attorneys'  fees,  as  it  is  already  dispensed 
in  the  "small  debtors"  courts  of  Kansas  City  and 
through  the  free  legal-aid  bureau.  Colonel  Nelson 
says :  '  Tree  justice'  would  take  the  judicial  adminis 
tration  of  the  law  out  of  the  hands  of  privately  paid  at 
torneys  and  place  it  wholly  in  the  hands  of  courts 
officered  by  the  public's  servants. 

"In  the  great  majority  of  cases  justice  is  still  not 
free.  A  man  must  hire  his  lawyer.  So  justice  is  not 
only  not  free  but  not  equal.  A  poor  owner  of  a  legal 
right  gives  a  $5  fee  to  a  $5  lawyer.  A  rich  defender 
of  a  legal  wrong  gives  a  $5,000  fee  to  a  $5,000  lawyer. 
The  scales  of  a  purchased  justice  tip  to  the  wrong  side. 
Or,  even  if  the  owner  of  the  legal  right  gets  his  right 
established  by  the  court,  he  still  must  divide  the  value  of 
it  with  his  attorney.  The  administration  of  justice 
should  be  as  free  as  the  making  of  laws.  It  should  be 
as  free  as  police  service." 

The  "Star"  has  been  hammering  away  at  this  idea 
for  months,  precisely  as  it  has  been  hammering  at  politi 
cal  corruption,  wherever  found.  Another  "Star"  cru 
sade  is  for  a  25-acre  park  opposite  the  new  Union  Sta 
tion,  instead  of  the  small  plaza  originally  planned — 
the  danger  in  the  case  of  the  latter  being  that,  although 
it  does  provide  some  setting  for  the  station,  it  yet  per 
mits  cheap  buildings  to  encroach  to  a  point  sufficiently 
near  the  station  to  materially  detract  from  it. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Many  lawyers  disapprove  of  the  "free  justice"  idea; 
all  the  politically  corrupt  loathe  the  "Star"  for  obvious 
reasons;  and  some  taxpayers  may  be  found  who  cry 
out  that  Colonel  Nelson  pushes  Kansas  City  into  im 
provements  faster  than  she  ought  to  go.  Nevertheless, 
as  with  the  "Post-Dispatch"  in  St.  Louis,  the  "Star"  is 
read  alike  by  those  who  believe  in  it  and  those  who  hate 
it  bitterly. 

As  an  outsider  fascinated  by  the  "Star's"  activities, 
I  came  away  with  the  opinion  that  Colonel  Nelson's 
power  was  perhaps  greater  than  that  of  any  other  sin 
gle  newspaper  publisher  in  the  country;  that  it  was 
perhaps  too  great  for  one  man  to  wield,  but  that,  exer 
cised  by  such  a  pure  idealist  as  the  Colonel  unquestion 
ably  is,  it  has  been  a  blessing  to  the  city.  Nor  can  I 
conceive  how  even  the  bitterest  enemies  of  Colonel  Nel 
son  can  question  his  motives. 

Will  Irwin,  who  knows  about  newspapers  if  anybody 
does,  said  to  me:  "The  'Star'  is  not  only  one  of  the 
greatest  newspapers  in  the  world,  but  it  is  a  regular 
club.  I  know  of  no  paper  anywhere  where  the  per 
sonnel  of  the  men  is  higher.  I  will  give  you  a  letter  to 
Barton.  He  will  introduce  you  around  the  office,  and 
the  office  will  do  the  rest." 

I  found  these  prognostications  true.  Inside  a  few 
hours  I  felt  as  though  I,  too,  had  been  a  "Star"  man. 
"Star"  men  took  me  to  "dinner" — meaning  what  we 
in  the  East  call  "luncheon" ;  took  me  to  see  the  station, 
put  me  in  touch  with  endless  stories  of  all  sorts — all 

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COLONEL  NELSON'S  "STAR" 

with  the  kindliest  and  most  disinterested  spirit.  They 
told  me  so  much  that  I  could  write  half  a  dozen  chapters 
on  Kansas  City. 

Take,  for  example,  the  story  of  the  Convention  Hall. 
It  is  a  vast  auditorium,  taking  up,  as  I  recall  it,  a 
whole  block.  It  was  built  for  the  Democratic  National 
Convention  in  1900,  but  burned  down  immediately  after 
having  been  completed ;  whereupon  Kansas  City  turned 
in,  raised  the  money  all  over  again,  and  in  about  ten 
weeks'  time  completely  rebuilt  it.  There  Bryan  was 
nominated  for  the  second  time.  Or,  consider  the  story 
of  the  "Harvey  System"  of  hotels  and  restaurants  on  the 
Santa  Fe  Road.  The  headquarters  of  this  eating-house 
system  is  in  Kansas  City,  and  offers  a  fine  field  for  a 
story  all  by  itself,  for  it  has  been  the  biggest  single  influ 
ence  in  civilizing  hotel  life  and  in  raising  gastronomic 
standards  throughout  the  west. 

But  these  are  only  items  by  the  way — two  among  the 
countless  things  that  "Star"  men  told  me  of,  or  showed 
me.  And,  of  course,  the  greatest  thing  they  showed 
me  was  right  in  their  own  office:  their  friend,  their 
"boss,"  that  active  volcano,  seventy-three  years  old, 
who  comes  down  daily  to  his  desk,  and  whose  en 
thusiasm  fires  them  all. 

Colonel  Nelson  is  a  "character."  Even  if  he  didn't 
own  the  "Star,"  even  if  he  had  not  the  mind  he  has,  he 
would  be  a  "character,"  if  only  by  virtue  of  his  appear 
ance.  I  have  called  him  a  volcano;  he  is  more  like  one 
than  any  other  man  I  have  ever  met.  He  is  even  shaped 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

like  one,  being  mountainous  in  his  proportions,  and  also 
in  the  way  he  tapers  upward  from  his  vast  waist  to  his 
snow-capped  "peak."  Furthermore,  his  face  is  lined, 
seamed,  and  furrowed  in  extraordinary  suggestion  of 
those  strange,  gnarled  lava  forms  which  adorn  the 
slopes  of  Vesuvius.  Even  the  voice  which  proceeds 
from  the  Colonel's  "crater"  is  Vesuvian:  hoarse,  deep, 
rumbling,  strong.  When  he  speaks,  great  natural 
forces  seem  to  stir,  and  you  hope  that  no  eruption  may 
occur  while  you  are  near,  lest  the  fire  from  the  moun 
tain  descend  upon  you  and  destroy  you. 

"Umph !"  rumbled  the  volcano  as  it  shook  hands  with 
my  companion  and  me.  "You're  from  New  York? 
New  York  is  running  the  big  gambling  house  and  show 
house  for  the  country.  It  does  n't  produce  anything. 
It  does  n't  take  any  more  interest  in  where  the  money 
comes  from  than  a  gambler  cares  where  you  get  the 
money  you  put  into  his  game. 

"Kansas  is  the  greatest  state  in  the  Union.  It 
thinks.  It  produces  things.  Among  other  things,  it 
produces  crazy  people.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  have  a 
few  crazy  people  around !  Roosevelt  is  crazy.  Umph ! 
So  were  the  men  who  started  the  Revolution  to  break 
away  from  England. 

"Most  of  the  people  in  the  United  States  don't  think, 
They  are  indifferent  and  apathetic.  They  don't  want 
to  work.  One  of  our  'Star'  boys  went  to  an  agricultural 
college  to  see  what  was  going  on  there.  What  did  he 
find  out?  Why,  that  instead  of  making  farmers  they 

308 


COLONEL  NELSON'S  "STAR" 

were  making  professors.  Yes.  Pretty  nearly  the  en 
tire  graduating  class  went  there  to  learn  to  teach  farm 
ing.  That 's  not  what  we  want.  We  want  farmers." 

The  Colonel's  enemies  have  tried,  on  various  occa 
sions,  to  "get"  him,  but  without  distinguished  success. 
The  Colonel  goes  into  a  fight  with  joy.  Once,  when  he 
was  on  the  stand  as  a  witness  in  a  libel  suit  which  had 
been  brought  against  his  paper,  a  copy  of  the  editorial 
containing  the  alleged  libel  was  handed  to  him  by  the 
attorney  for  the  prosecution. 

"Colonel  Nelson,"  said  the  attorney,  menacingly, 
"did  you  write  this?" 

"No,  sir!"  bristled  the  Colonel  with  apparent  regret 
at  the  forced  negation  of  his  answer,  "but  I  subscribe  to 
every  word  of  it !" 

Once  the  Colonel's  enemies  almost  succeeded  in  put 
ting  him  in  jail. 

A  "Star"  reporter  wrote  a  story  illustrating  the  prac 
tice  of  the  Jackson  County  Circuit  Court  in  refusing  to 
permit  a  divorce  case  to  be  dismissed  by  either  husband 
or  wife  until  the  lawyers  in  the  case  had  received  their 
fees.  The  "Star"  contended  that  such  practice,  where 
the  couple  had  made  up  their  quarrel,  made  the  court, 
in  effect,  a  collection  agency.  Through  a  technical 
error  the  story,  as  printed,  seemed  to  refer  to  the  judge 
of  one  division  of  the  court  when  it  should  have  applied 
to  another.  The  judge  who  was,  through  this  error, 
apparently  referred  to,  seized  the  opportunity  to  issue  a 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

summons  charging  Colonel  Nelson  with  contempt  of 
court. 

Colonel  Nelson,  who  had  known  nothing  of  the  story 
until  he  read  it  in  print,  not  only  went  to  the  front  for 
his  reporter,  but  caused  the  story  to  be  reprinted,  with 
the  added  statement  that  it  was  true  and  that  he  had 
been  summonsed  on  account  of  it. 

When  he  appeared  in  court  the  judge  demanded  an 
apology.  This  the  Colonel  refused  to  give,  but  offered 
to  prove  the  story  true.  The  judge  replied  that  the 
truth  of  the  story  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  He 
permitted  no  evidence  upon  that  subject  to  be  intro 
duced,  but,  drawing  from  his  pocket  some  typewritten 
sheets,  proceeded  to  read  from  them  a  sentence,  con 
demning  the  Colonel  to  one  day  in  jail.  This  sentence 
he  then  ordered  the  sheriff  to  execute. 

However,  before  the  sheriff  could  do  so,  a  lawyer, 
representing  the  Colonel,  ran  upstairs  and  secured  from 
the  Court  of  Appeals,  in  the  same  building,  a  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  on  the  ground  that  the  decision  of  the 
lower  judge  had  been  prepared  before  he  heard  the  evi 
dence.  This  the  latter  admitted.  Thus  the  Colonel 
was  saved  from  jail — somewhat,  it  is  rumored,  to  his  re 
gret.  Later  the  case  was  dismissed  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  Missouri. 

An  attorney  representing  the  gas  company,  against 
which  the  "Star"  had  been  waging  war,  called  on  the 
Colonel  one  day  to  complain  of  injustices  which  he  al- 

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COLONEL  NELSON'S  "STAR" 

leged  the  company  was  suffering  at  the  hands  of  the 
paper. 

"Colonel  Nelson,"  he  said,  "your  young  men  are  not 
being  fair  to  the  gas  company." 

"Let  me  tell  you,"  said  the  Colonel,  "that  if  they  were 
I'd  fire  them!" 

"Why,  Colonel  Nelson!"  said  the  dismayed  attorney. 
"Do  you  mean  to  say  you  don't  want  to  be  fair?" 

"Yes,  sir!"  said  the  Colonel.  "When  has  your  com 
pany  been  fair  to  Kansas  City  ?  When  you  are  fair  my 
young  men  will  be  fair !" 

If  there  is  one  thing  about  the  "Star"  more  amazing 
than  another,  it  is  perhaps  the  effect  it  can  produce  by 
mere  negative  action — that  is,  by  ignoring  its  enemies 
instead  of  attacking  them.  In  one  case  a  man  who  had 
made  most  objectionable  attacks  on  Colonel  Nelson  per 
sonally,  was  treated  to  such  a  course  of  discipline,  with 
the  result,  I  was  informed,  that  he  was  ultimately  ruined. 

The  "Star"  did  not  assail  him.  It  simply  refused  to 
accept  advertising  from  him  and  declined  to  mention  his 
name  or  to  refer  to  his  enterprises. 

When  the  victim  of  this  singular  reprisal  was  writh 
ing  under  it,  a  prominent  citizen  called  at  Colonel  Nel 
son's  office  to  plead  with  the  Colonel  to  "let  up." 

"Colonel,"  he  protested,  "you  ought  not  to  keep  after 
this  man.  It  is  ruining  his  business." 

"Keep  after  him?"  repeated  the  Colonel.  "I'm  not 
keeping  after  him.  For  me  he  does  n't  exist." 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"That 's  just  the  trouble,"  urged  the  mediator. 
"Now,  Colonel,  you  're  getting  to  be  an  old  man. 
Would  n't  you  be  happier  when  you  lay  down  at  night 
if  you  could  think  to  yourself  that  there  was  n't  a  single 
man  in  Kansas  City  who  was  worse  off  because  of  any 
action  on  your  part?" 

At  that  occurred  a  sudden  eruption  of  the  old  volcano. 

"By  God !"  cried  the  Colonel.     "I  could  n't  sleep !" 


312 


CHAPTER  XXV 
KEEPING  A  PROMISE 

The  shades  of  night  were  falling  fast, 
As  through  a  western  landscape  passed 
A  car,  which  bore,  'mid  snow  and  ice, 
Two  trai/lers  taking  this  advice: 

Visit  Excelsior  Springs! 

HAVE  you  ever  heard  of  the  city  of  Excelsior 
Springs,  Missouri?  I  never  had  until  the  let 
ters  began  to  come.  The  first  one  reached  me 
in  Detroit.  It  told  me  that  Excelsior  Springs  desired  to 
be  "written  up,"  and  offered  me,  as  an  inducement  to 
come  there,  the  following  arguments:  paved  streets, 
beautiful  scenery,  three  modern,  fire-proof  hotels, 
flourishing  lodges,  live  churches,  fine  saddle  horses,  an 
eighteen-hole  golf  course  ("26.  to  none,"  the  letter  said) 
four  distinct  varieties  of  mineral  water,  and — Frank 
James. 

The  mention  of  Frank  James  stirred  poignant  mem 
ories  of  my  youth:  recollections  of  forbidden  "nickel 
novels"  dealing  with  the  wild  deeds  alleged  to  have 
been  committed  by  the  James  Boys,  Frank  and  Jesse, 
and  their  "Gang."  I  used  to  keep  these  literary  treas 
ures  concealed  behind  a  dusty  furnace  pipe  in  the  cellar 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

of  the  old  house  in  Chicago.  On  rainy  days  I  would 
steal  down  and  get  them,  and,  retiring  to  some  out-of- 
the-way  corner  of  the  attic,  would  read  and  re-read 
them  in  a  kind  of  ecstasy  of  horror — a  horror  which  was 
enhanced  by  the  eternal  fear  of  being  discovered  with 
such  trash  in  my  possession. 

I  had  not  thought  of  the  James  Boys  in  many  years. 
But  when  I  got  that  letter,  and  realized  that  Frank 
James  was  still  alive,  the  old  stories  came  flooding  back. 
As  with  Maeterlinck  and  Hinky  Dink,  the  James  Boys 
seemed  to  me  to  be  fictitious  figures;  beings  too  won 
derful  to  be  true.  The  idea  of  meeting  one  of  them  and 
talking  with  him  seemed  hardly  less  improbable  than 
the  idea  of  meeting  Barbarossa,  Captain  Kidd,  Dick 
Turpin,  or  Robin  Hood.  I  began  to  wish  to  visit  Ex 
celsior  Springs. 

Before  I  had  a  chance  to  answer  the  first  letter  others 
came.  Mr.  W.  E.  Davy,  Chief  Correspondent  of  the 
Brotherhood  of  American  Yeomen,  wrote  that,  "Excel 
sior  Springs  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  and  inter 
esting  spots  in  that  portion  of  the  country."  Ban  B. 
Johnson,  president  of  the  American  Baseball  League, 
also  wrote,  declaring,  "I  believe  Excelsior  Springs  to 
be  the  greatest  watering  place  on  the  American  con 
tinent."  Then  came  letters  from  business  men,  Con 
gressmen  and  Senators,  until  it  began  to  seem  to  me  that 
the  entire  world  had  dropped  its  work  and  taken  up  its 
pen  to  impress  upon  me  the  vital  need  of  a  visit  to  this 
little  town.  The  letters  came  so  thick  that,  from  St. 

3H 


KEEPING  A  PROMISE 

Louis,  I  telegraphed  the  Secretary  of  the  Excelsior 
Springs  Commercial  Club  to  say  that,  if  he  would  let  up 
on  me,  I  would  agree  to  come.  After  that  the  letters 
stopped  as  though  by  magic.  Until  I  reached  Kansas 
City  I  heard  no  more  about  Excelsior  Springs.  There, 
however,  a  deputation  called  to  remind  me  of  my  prom 
ise,  and  a  few  days  later  the  same  deputation  returned 
and  escorted  my  companion  and  me  to  the  interurban  car, 
and  bought  our  tickets,  and  checked  our  trunks,  and 
put  us  in  our  seats,  and  sat  beside  us  watchfully,  like 
detectives  taking  prisoners  to  jail.  For  though  I  had 
promised  we  would  come,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
they  were  from  Missouri. 

Excelsior  Springs  is  a  busy,  pushing  little  town  of 
about  five  thousand  inhabitants,  situated  in  Clay  County, 
Missouri,  about  thirty  miles  from  Kansas  City.  The 
whole  place  has  been  built  up  since  1880,  on  the  strength 
of  the  mineral  waters  found  there — and  when  you  have 
tasted  these  waters  you  can  understand  it,  for  they  are 
very  strong  indeed.  But  that  is  putting  the  thing 
bluntly.  Listen,  then,  to  the  booklet  issued  by  the  Ex 
celsior  Springs  Commercial  Club: 

Even  as  'truth  is  stranger  than  fiction/  so  the  secrets  of  Na 
ture  are  even  more  wonderful  than  the  things  wrought  by  the 
hands  of  man.  Just  why  it  pleased  the  Creator  of  the  Universe 
to  install  one  of  His  laboratories  here  and  infuse  into  its  waters 
curative  powers  which  surpass  the  genius  and  skill  of  all  the  phy 
sicians  in  Christendom  is  a  question  which  no  one  can  answer. 
Like  the  stars,  the  flowers,  and  the  ocean,  it  is  merely  one  of  the 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

great  eternal  verities  with  which  we  are  surrounded.     Whither 
and  whence  no  man  knows. 

Having  paid  this  fitting  compliment  to  the  Creator, 
the  pamphleteer  proceeds  to  expatiate  upon  the  joys  of 
the  place : 

There  are  cool,  shaded  parks  and  woodlands,  where  you  can 
sit  under  the  big,  spreading  trees  which  shut  out  the  hot  sum 
mer's  sun — where  you  can  loll  on  blankets  of  thickly  matted  blue 
grass  and  read  and  sleep  to  your  heart's  content — far  from  the 
madding  crowd  and  the  world's  fierce  strife  and  turmoil.  .  .  . 
Here  the  golf  player  will  find  one  of  the  finest  golf  links  his 
heart  would  desire.  The  fisherman  will  find  limpid  streams 
where  the  wary  black  bass  lurks  behind  moss-covered  rocks.  .  .  . 
Here  you  and  your  wife  can  vie  at  tennis,  bowling,  horseback  rid 
ing,  and  a  dozen  other  wholesome  exercises,  and  when  the  shad 
ows  of  the  night  have  fallen  there  are  orchestras  which  dispense 
sweet  music  and  innumerable  picture  shows  and  other  forms  of 
entertainment  which  will  while  away  the  fleetings  moments  until 
bedtime. 

Though  the  writer  of  the  above  prose-poem  chose  to 
assume  that  the  imaginary  being  to  whom  he  addresses 
himself  is  a  married  man,  the  reader  must  not  jump 
to  the  conclusion  that  Excelsior  Springs  is  a  resort  for 
married  couples  only,  that  the  married  are  obliged  to 
run  in  pairs,  or  that  those  who  have  been  joined  in 
matrimony  are,  for  any  reason,  in  especial  need  of  heal 
ing  waters.  If  unmarried  persons  are  not  so  welcome 
at  the  Springs  as  married  couples,  that  is  only  because 
a  couple  spends  more  money  than  an  individual.  The 
unmarried  are  cordially  received.  And  I  may  add-. 

316 


KEEPING  A  PROMISE 

from  personal  observation,  that  the  married  man  or 
woman  who  arrives  alone  can  usually  arrange  to  "vie 
at  tennis,  bowling,  horseback  riding,  and  a  dozen  other 
wholesome  exercises"  with  the  husband  or  the  wife  of 
some  one  else.  In  short,  Excelsior  Springs  is  like  most 
other  "resorts."  But  all  this  is  by  the  way.  The  waters 
are  the  main  thing.  The  paved  streets,  the  parks,  the 
golf  links,  even  Frank  James,  sink  into  comparative  in 
significance  compared  with  the  natural  beverages  of 
the  place.  The  Commercial  Club  desires  that  this  be 
clearly  understood,  and  seems,  even,  to  resent  the  prox 
imity  of  Frank  James,  as  a  rival  attraction  to  the  waters, 
as  though  under  an  impression  that  no  human  being 
could  stomach  both.  Before  I  departed  from  the 
Springs  some  members  of  the  Commercial  Club  became 
so  alarmed  at  the  interest  I  was  showing  in  the  former 
outlaw  that  they  called  upon  me  in  a  body  and  exacted 
from  me  a  solemn  promise  that  I  should  on  no  account 
neglect  to  write  about  the  waters.  I  agreed,  whereupon 
I  was  given  full  information  regarding  the  waters  by  a 
gentleman  bearing  the  appropriate  name  of  Fish. 

Mr.  Fish  informed  me  that  the  waters  of  Excelsior 
Springs  resemble,  in  their  general  effect,  the  waters  of 
Homburg,  the  favorite  watering  place  of  the  late  King 
Edward — or,  rather,  I  think  he  put  it  the  other  way 
round:  that  Homburg  waters  resembled  those  of  Ex 
celsior  Springs.  The  famous  Elizabethbrunnen  of 
Homburg  is  like  a  combination  of  two  waters  found  at 
the  Missouri  resort — a  saline  water  and  an  iron  water, 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

having,  together,  a  laxative,  alterative,  and  tonic  ef 
fect.  Mr.  Fish,  who  has  made  a  study  of  waters,  says 
that  Excelsior  Springs  has  the  greatest  variety  of  val 
uable  mineral  waters  to  be  found  in  this  country,  and 
that  the  town  possesses  two  among  the  half  dozen  iron- 
manganese  springs  being  used,  commercially,  in  the  en 
tire  world.  Duplicates  of  these  springs  are  to  be  found 
at  Schwalbach  and  Pyrmont,  in  Germany;  Spa,  in  Bel 
gium,  and  St.  Moritz,  in  Switzerland.  The  value  of 
manganese  when  associated  with  iron  is  that  it  makes 
the  iron  more  digestible. 

Another  type  of  water  found  at  the  Springs  is  of  a 
saline-sulphur  variety,  such  as  is  found  at  Saratoga, 
Blue  Lick  (Ky.),  Ems,  and  Baden-Baden.  Still  an 
other  type  is  the  soda  water  similar  to  that  of  Manitou 
(Colo.),  Vichy,  and  Carlsbad,  while  a  fourth  variety  of 
water  is  the  lithia. 

In  1 88 1  the  present  site  of  the  town  was  occupied  by 
farms,  one  of  them  that  of  Anthony  Wyman,  on  whose 
land  the  original  "Siloam"  iron  spring  was  discovered. 
This  spring,  the  water  of  which  left  a  yellow  streak  on 
the  ground  as  it  flowed  away,  had  been  known  for  years 
among  the  negro  farm  hands  as  the  "old  pizen  spring," 
and  it  is  said  that  when  they  were  threshing  wheat  in 
the  fields,  and  became  thirsty,  none  of  them  dared  drink 
from  it. 

Rev.  Dr.  Flack,  a  resident  of  the  neighborhood,  hav 
ing  heard  about  the  spring,  took  a  sample  of  the  water 
and  sent  it  to  be  analyzed — as  my  informant  put  it, 

318 


KEEPING  A  PROMISE 

"to  find  out  what  was  the  matter  with  it."  The  analysis 
showed  the  reason  for  the  yellow  streak,  and  informed 
Dr.  Flack  of  the  spring's  value. 

From  that  time  on  people  began  to  drive  to  the  Springs 
in  the  stagecoaches  that  passed  through  the  region. 
First  there  were  camps,  but  in  1882  a  few  houses  were 
built  and  the  town  was  incorporated.  In  1888  the  Chi 
cago,  Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  Railroad  began  to  operate 
a  line  through  Excelsior  Springs,  and  in  1894  the  Wa- 
bash  connected  with  the  Springs  by  constructing  a  spur 
line.  The  Milwaukee  &  St.  Paul  tracks  pass  at  a  dis 
tance  of  about  one  mile  from  the  town,  and  this  fact 
finally  caused  the  late  Sam  F.  Scott  to  build  a  dummy  line 
to  the  station. 

I  was  told  that  Mr.  Scott  had  handsome  passes  en 
graved,  and  that  he  sent  these  to  the  presidents  of  all 
the  leading  railroad  companies  of  the  country,  request 
ing  an  exchange  of  courtesies.  According  to  this  story, 
Mr.  Scott  received  a  reply  from  Alexander  Cassatt, 
then  president  of  the  Pennsylvania  system,  saying  that 
he  was  unable  to  find  Mr.  Scott's  road  in  the  Railroad 
Directory,  and  asking  for  further  information.  To  this 
letter,  it  is  said,  Mr.  Scott  replied :  "My  road  is  not  so 
long  as  yours,  but  it  is  just  as  wide."  Perhaps  I  should 
add  that,  later,  I  heard  the  same  story  told  of  the  presi 
dent  of  a  small  Colorado  line,  and  that  still  later  I  heard 
it  in  connection  with  a  little  road  in  California.  It  may 
be  an  old  story,  but  it  was  new  to  me,  and  I  hereby  fasten 
it  upon  the  town  where  I  first  heard  it. 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Excelsior  Springs  is  the  headquarters  of  the  Bill 
Club,  which  has  come  in  for  humorous  mention,  from 
time  to  time,  in  newspapers  throughout  the  land.  The 
Bill  Club  is  a  national  organization,  the  sole  require 
ment  for  membership  having  originally  consisted  in  the 
possession  of  the  cognomen  "William"  and  the  payment 
of  a  dollar  bill.  Bill  Sisk  of  Excelsior  Springs  is  presi 
dent  of  the  Bill  Club,  Bill  Hyder  is  secretary,  and  Bill 
Flack  treasurer.  By  an  amendment  of  the  Bill  Club 
constitution,  "any  lady  who  has  been  christened  Willie, 
Wilena,  Wilhelmine,  or  Williamette,  may  also  join  the 
Bill  Club."  The  pass  word  of  the  organization  is 
"Hello,  Bill,"  and  among  the  honorary  members  are  ex- 
President  Bill  Taft,  Secretary  of  State  Bill  Bryan,  Sena 
tors  Bill  Warner  and  Bill  Stone  of  Missouri,  Bill  Hearst, 
Colonel  Bill  Nelson,  publisher  of  the  Kansas  City  "Star," 
and  Bill  Bill,  a  hat  manufacturer,  of  Hartford,  Conn. 


The  head  waiter  at  our  hotel  was  a  beaming  negro. 
As  my  companion  and  I  came  down  to  breakfast  on  our 
first  morning  there,  he  met  us  at  the  door,  led  us  across 
the  dining  room,  drew  out  our  chairs,  and,  as  we  sat 
down,  inquired,  pleasantly: 

"Well,  gentamen,  how  did  you  enjoy  yo'  sleep?" 

We  both  assured  him  that  we  had  slept  well. 

"Yes,  suh;  yes,  suh,"  he  replied.  "That 's  the  way  it 
most  gen'ally  is  down  here.  People  either  sleeps  well  or 
they  don't." 

320 


KEEPING  A  PROMISE 

After  breakfast  we  were  taken  in  a  motor  to  the  James 
farm,  nine  miles  distant  from  the  town.  Never  have 
I  seen  more  charming  landscapes  than  those  we  passed 
upon  this  drive.  An  Englishman  at  Excelsior  Springs 
told  me  that  the  landscapes  reminded  him  of  home,  but 
to  me  they  were  not  English,  for  they  had  none  of  that 
finished,  gardenlike  formality  which  one  associates  with 
the  scenery  of  England.  The  country  in  that  part  of 
Missouri  is  hilly,  and  spring  was  just  commencing  when 
we  were  there,  touching  the  feathery  tips  of  the  trees 
with  a  color  so  faint  that  it  seemed  like  a  light  green 
mist.  It  was  a  warm,  sunny  day,  and  the  breeze  sweet 
with  the  smell  of  growing  things.  There  was  no  haze? 
the  air  was  clear,  yet  by  some  subtle  quality  in  the  light, 
colors,  w^hich  elsewhere  might  have  looked  raw,  were 
strangely  softened  and  made  to  blend  with  one  another. 
Blatant  red  barns,  green  houses,  and  the  bright  blue 
overalls  worn  by  farm  hands  in  the  fields,  did  not  jump 
out  of  the  picture,  but  melted  into  it  harmoniously,  keep 
ing  us  in  a  constant  state  of  amazement  and  delight. 

"If  you  think  it  's  pretty  now/'  our  guardians  told  us, 
"you  ought  to  see  it  in  the  summer  when  the  trees  are  at 
their  best." 

Of  course  such  landscapes  must  be  fine  in  summer, 
but  the  beauty  of  summer  is  an  obvious  kind  of  beauty, 
like  that  of  some  splendid  opulent  woman  in  a  rich 
evening  gown.  Summer  seems  to  me  to  be  a  little  bit 
too  sure  of  her  beauty,  a  little  too  well  aware  of  its 
completeness.  The  beauty  of  very  early  spring  is  dif- 

321 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

ferent;  there  is  something  frail  about  it;  something 
timid  and  faltering,  which  makes  me  think  of  a  young 
girl,  delicate  and  sweet,  who,  knowing  that  she  has 
not  reached  maturity,  looks  forward  to  her  womanhood 
and  remains  unconscious  of  her  present  virgin  loveli 
ness.  No,  I  am  sure  that  I  should  never  love  that  Mis 
souri  landscape  as  I  loved  it  in  the  early  spring,  and 
I  am  sure  that  such  a  painter  as  W.  Elmer  Schofield 
would  have  loved  it  best  as  I  saw  it,  and  that  Edward 
Redfield  or  Ernest  Lawson  would  prefer  to  paint  it  in 
that  aspect  than  in  any  other  which  it  could  assume.  I 
should  like  to  see  them  paint  it,  and  I  should  also  like  to 
see  their  paintings  shown  to  Kansas  and  Missouri. 

What  would  Kansas  and  Missouri  make  of  them? 
Very  little,  I  fear.  For  (with  the  exception  of  St. 
Louis)  those  two  States  seem  to  be  devoid  of  all  feel 
ing  for  art.  I  doubt  that  there  is  a  public  art  gallery 
in  the  whole  State  of  Kansas,  or  a  private  collection  of 
paintings  worth  speaking  of.  As  for  western  Missouri, 
I  could  learn  of  no  paintings  there,  save  some  full-sized 
copies,  in  oil,  of  works  of  old  masters,  which  were  pre- 
1  sented  to  Kansas  City  by  Colonel  Nelson.  These  copies 
are  exceptionally  fine.  They  might  form  the  nucleus 
for  a  municipal  gallery  of  art — a  much  better  nucleus 
than  would  be  formed  by  one  or  two  actual  works  of 
old  masters — but  Kansas  City  has  n't  "gotten  around  to 
art,"  as  yet,  apparently.  The  paintings  are  housed  in 
the  second  story  of  a  library  building,  and  several  peo 
ple  to  whom  I  spoke  had  never  heard  of  them. 

322 


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CHAPTER  XXVI 
THE  TAME  LION 

THE  James  farm  occupies  a  pretty  bit  of  rolling 
land,  at  one  corner  of  which,  near  the  road, 
Frank  James  has  built  himself  a  neat,  substan 
tial  frame  house. 

Before  the  house  is  a  large  gate,  bearing  a  sign  as 
follows : 

JAMES  FARMS 

HOME  OF  THE  JAMES' 

JESSE  AND  FRANK 

ADMISSION  500. 

KODAKS  BARED 

That  word  "bared"  is  not  bad  proofreading;  it  was 
spelled  like  that  on  the  sign. 

As  we  moved  in  the  direction  of  the  house  a  tall, 
slender  old  man  with  a  large  hooked  nose  and  a  white 
beard  and  mustache  walked  toward  us.  He  was  dressed 
in  an  exceedingly  neat  suit  and  wore  a  large  black  felt 
hat  of  the  type  common  throughout  Missouri.  Coming 
up,  he  greeted  our  escort  cordially,  after  which  we  were 
introduced.  It  was  Frank  James. 

The  former  outlaw  is  a  shrewd-looking,  well  preserved 
man,  whose  carriage,  despite  his  seventy-one  years,  is 
notably  erect.  He  looks  more  like  a  prosperous  farmer 

323 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

or  the  president  of  a  rural  bank  than  like  a  bandit.  In 
his  manner  there  is  a  strong  note  of  the  showman.  It 
is  not  at  all  objectionable,  but  it  is  there,  in  the  same 
way  that  it  is  there  in  Buffalo  Bill.  Frank  James  is  an 
interesting  figure ;  on  meeting  him  you  see,  at  once,  that 
he  knows  he  is  an  interesting  figure  and  that  he  trades 
upon  the  fact.  He  is  clearly  an  intelligent  man,  but 
he  has  been  looked  at  and  listened  to  for  so  many  years, 
as  a  kind  of  curiosity,  that  he  has  the  air  of  going 
through  his  tricks  for  one — of  getting  off  a  line  of  prac 
tised  patter.  It  is  pretty  good  patter,  as  patter  goes, 
inclining  to  quotation,  epigram,  and  homely  philosophy, 
delivered  in  an  assured  "platform  manner." 

It  may  be  well  here  to  remind  the  reader  of  the  history 
of  the  James  Gang. 

The  father  and  mother  of  the  "boys"  came  from  Ken 
tucky  to  Missouri.  The  father  was  a  Baptist  minister 
and  a  slaveholder.  He  died  before  the  war,  and  his 
widow  married  a  man  named  Samuels,  by  whom  she 
had  several  children. 

From  the  year  1856  Missouri,  which  was  a  slave 
state,  warred  with  Kansas,  which  was  a  free  state, 
and  there  was  much  barbarity  along  the  border. 
The  "Jayhawkers,"  or  Kansas  guerrillas,  would  make 
forays  into  Missouri,  stealing  cattle,  burning  houses, 
and  committing  all  manner  of  depredations ;  and  lawless 
gangs  of  Missourians  would  retaliate,  in  kind,  on  Kan 
sas.  Among  the  most  appalling  cutthroats  on  the  Mis 
souri  side  was  a  man  named  Quantrell,  head  of  the 

324 


THE  TAME  LION 

Quantrell  gang,  a  body  of  guerrillas  which  sometimes 
numbered  upward  of  a  thousand  men.  The  James  boys 
were  members  of  this  gang,  Frank  James  joining  at  the 
opening  of  the  Civil  War,  and  Jesse  two  years  later,  at 
the  age  of  sixteen.  In  speaking  of  joining  Quantrell, 
Frank  James  spoke  of  "going  into  the  army."  Quan 
trell  was,  however,  a  mere  border  ruffian  and  was  dis 
owned  by  the  Confederate  army. 

According  to  Frank  James,  Quantrell,  who  was  born 
in  Canal  Dover,  Ohio,  went  west,  with  his  brother,  to 
settle.  In  Kansas  they  were  set  upon  by  "Jayhawkers" 
and  "Redlegs,"  with  the  result  that  Quantrell's  brother 
was  killed  and  that  Quantrell  himself  was  wounded 
and  left  for  dead.  He  was,  however,  nursed  to  life  by 
a  Nez  Perce  Indian.  When  he  recovered  he  became 
determined  to  have  revenge  upon  the  Kansans.  To  that 
end,  he  affected  to  be  in  sympathy  with  them,  and  joined 
some  of  their  marauding  bands.  When  he  had  estab 
lished  himself  in  their  confidence  he  used  to  get  himself 
sent  out  on  scouting  expeditions  with  one  or  two  other 
men,  and  it  was  his  amiable  custom,  upon  such  occa 
sions,  to  kill  his  companions  and  return  with  a  story 
of  an  attack  by  the  enemy  in  which  the  others  had  met 
death.  At  last,  when  he  had  played  this  trick  so  often 
that  he  feared  detection,  he  determined  to  get  himself 
clear  of  his  fellows.  A  plan  had  been  matured  for  an 
attack  upon  the  house  of  a  rich  slaveholder.  Quantrell 
went  to  the  house  in  advance,  betrayed  the  plan,  and 
arranged  to  join  forces  with  the  defenders.  This 

325 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

resulted  in  the  death  of  his  seven  or  eight  com 
panions.  At  about  this  time  the  war  came  on,  and 
Quantrell  became  a  famous  guerrilla  leader,  falling  on 
detached  bodies  of  Northern  troops  and  massacring 
them,  and  even  attacking  towns — one  of  his  worst  of 
fenses  having  been  the  massacre  of  most  of  the  male 
inhabitants  of  Lawrence,  Kas.  He  gave  as  the  reason 
for  his  atrocities  his  desire  for  revenge  for  the  death 
of  his  brother,  and  also  used  to  allege  that  he  was  a 
Southerner,  though  that  was  not  true. 

I  asked  Frank  James  how  he  came  to  join  Quantrell, 
when  the  war  broke  out,  instead  of  enlisting  in  the  reg 
ular  army. 

"We  knew  he  was  not  a  very  fine  character,"  he  ex 
plained,  "but  we  were  like  the  followers  of  Villa  or 
Huerta:  we  wanted  to  destroy  the  folks  that  wanted 
to  destroy  us,  and  we  would  follow  any  man  that  would 
show  us  how  to  do  it.  Besides,  I  was  young  then. 
When  a  man  is  young  his  blood  is  hot ;  there  's  a  million 
things  he  '11  do  then  that  he  won't  do  when  he  's  older. 
There  's  a  story  about  a  man  at  a  banquet.  He  was 
offered  champagne  to  drink,  but  he  said :  'I  want  quick 
action.  I  '11  take  Bourbon  whisky.'  That  was  the  way 
I  felt.  That 's  why  I  joined  Quantrell :  to  get  quick 
action.  And  I  got  it,  too.  Jesse  and  I  were  with  Quan 
trell  until  he  was  killed  in  Kentucky." 

John  Samuels,  a  half  brother  of  the  James  boys,  told 
me  the  story  of  how  Jesse  James  came  to  join  Quan 
trell. 

326 


THE  TAME  LION 

"Jesse  was  out  plowing  in  a  field,"  he  said,  "when  some 
Northern  soldiers  came  to  the  place  to  look  for  Frank. 
Jesse  was  only  sixteen  years  old.  They  beat  him  up. 
Then  they  went  to  the  house  and  asked  where  Frank 
was.  Mother  and  father  did  n't  know,  but  the  soldiers 
would  n't  believe  them.  They  took  father  out  and  hung 
him  by  the  neck  to  a  tree.  After  a  while  they  took  him 
down  and  gave  him  another  chance  to  tell.  Of  course 
he  could  n't.  So  they  hung  him  up  again.  They  did 
that  three  times.  Then  they  took  him  back  to  the  house 
and  told  my  mother  they  were  going  to  shoot  him. 
She  begged  them  not  to  do  it,  but  they  took  him  off  in 
the  woods  and  fired  off  their  guns  so  she  'd  hear,  and 
think  they  'd  done  it.  But  they  did  n't  shoot  him.  They 
just  took  him  over  to  another  town  and  put  him  in  jail. 
My  mother  did  n't  know  until  the  next  day  that  he 
had  n't  been  shot,  because  the  soldiers  ordered  her  to  re 
main  in  the  house  if  she  did  n't  want  to  get  shot,  too. 

"That  was  too  much  for  Jesse.  He  said:  'Maw, 
I  can't  stand  it  any  longer ;  I  'm  going  to  join  Quan- 
trell.'  And  he  did." 

After  the  war  the  wilder  element  from  the  disbanded 
armies  and  guerrilla  gangs  caused  continued  trouble. 
Crime  ran  rampant  along  the  border  between  Kansas 
and  Missouri.  And  for  many  crimes  committed  in  the 
neighborhood  in  which  they  lived,  the  James  boys,  who 
were  known  to  be  wild,  were  blamed. 

"Mother  always  said,"  declared  Mr.  Samuels,  "that 
Frank  and  Jesse  wanted  to  settle  down  after  the  war, 

327 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

but  that  the  neighbors  would  n't  let  them.  Everything 
that  went  wrong  around  this  region  was  always  charged 
to  them,  until,  finally,  they  were  driven  to  outlawry." 

"How  much  truth  is  there  in  the  different  stories  of 
bank  robberies  and  train  robberies  committed  by  them?" 
I  asked. 

"I  don't  know,"  he  said.  "Of  course  they  did  a  lot 
of  things.  But  we  never  knew.  They  never  said 
anything.  They  'd  just  come  riding  home,  every  now 
and  then,  and  stop  for  a  while,  and  then  go  riding  away 
again.  We  never  knew  where  they  came  from  or  where 
they  went." 

It  has  been  alleged  that  even  after  a  reward  of  $10,000 
had  been  offered  for  either  of  the  Jameses,  dead  or  alive, 
the  neighbors  shielded  them  when  it  was  known  that 
they  were  at  home.  I  spoke  about  that  to  an  old  man 
who  lived  on  a  nearby  farm. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "that 's  true.  Once  when  the  Pinker- 
tons  were  hunting  them  I  met  Frank  and  some  members 
of  the  gang  riding  along  the  road,  not  far  from  here.  I 
could  have  told,  but  I  did  n't  want  to.  I  was  n't  looking 
for  any  trouble  with  the  James  Gang.  Suppose  they 
had  caught  one  or  two  of  them  ?  There  'd  be  others  left 
to  get  even  with  me,  and  I  had  my  family  to  think  of. 
That  is  the  way  lots  of  the  neighbors  felt  about  it.  They 
were  afraid  to  tell." 

I  spoke  to  Frank  James  about  the  old  "nickel  novels." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "some  fellows  printed  a  lot  of  stuff. 
I  'd  have  stopped  it,  maybe,  if  I  'd  had  as  much  money  as 

328 


J^ 


••.    \A?Sh     »//<      &   x 


We  strolled  in  the  direction  of  the  old  house,  that  house  of  tragedy  in  which 
the  family  lived  in  the  troublous  times.  ...  It  was  there  that  the  Pinkertons 
threw  the  bomb 


THE  TAME  LION 

Rockefeller.  But  what  could  I  do?  I  tell  you  those 
yellow-backed  books  have  done  a  lot  of  harm  to  the  youth 
of  this  land — those  and  the  moving  pictures,  showing 
robberies.  Such  things  demoralize  youth.  If  I  had  the 
job  of  censoring  the  moving  pictures,  they  'd  say  I  was  a 
reg'lar  Robespierre !" 

"How  about  some  of  the  old  stories  of  robberies 
in  which  you  were  supposed  to  have  taken  part?"  I 
asked. 

"I  neither  affirm  nor  deny,"  Frank  James  answered, 
with  the  glibness  of  long  custom.  "If  I  admitted  that 
these  stories  were  true,  people  would  say:  There  is  the 
greatest  scoundrel  unhung !'  and  if  I  denied  'em,  they  ?d 
say :  There  's  the  greatest  liar  on  earth !'  So  I  just  say 
nothing." 

According  to  John  Samuels,  Frank  James  and  Cole 
Younger  were  generally  acknowledged  to  be  the  brains 
of  the  James  Gang.  "It  was  claimed,"  he  said,  "that 
Frank  planned  and  Jesse  executed.  Frank  was  certainly 
the  cool  man  of  the  two,  and  Jesse  was  a  little  bit  ex 
citable.  He  had  the  name  of  being  the  quickest  man  in 
the  world  with  a  gun.  Sometimes  when  he  was  home 
for  a  visit,  when  I  was  a  boy,  he  'd  be  sitting  there  in  the 
house,  and  there  'd  come  some  little  noise.  Then  he  'd 
whip  out  his  pistol  so  quick  you  could  n't  see  the  motion 
of  his  hand." 

As  we  conversed  we  strolled  in  the  direction  of  the  old 
house,  that  house  of  tragedy  in  which  the  family  lived 
in  the  troublous  times.  On  the  way  we  passed  Frank 

329 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

James's  chicken  coop,  and  I  noticed  that  on  it  had  been 
painted  the  legend:     "Bull  Moose— T.  R." 

"The  wing,  at  the  back,  is  the  old  part  of  the  house," 
James  explained.  "It  was  there  that  the  Pinkertons 
threw  the  bomb." 

I  asked  about  the  bomb  throwing  and  heard  the  story 
from  John  Samuels,  who  was  there  when  it  occurred. 

"I  was  a  child  of  thirteen  then,"  he  said,  "and  I  was 
the  only  one  in  the  room  who  was  n't  killed  or  crippled. 
It  happened  at  night.  We  had  suspected  for  a  long  time 
that  a  man  named  Laird,  who  was  working  as  a  farm 
hand  for  a  neighbor  of  ours  named  Askew  on  that  farm 
over  there" — he  indicated  a  farmhouse  on  a  near-by 
hill — "was  a  Pinkerton  man,  and  that  he  was  there  to 
watch  for  Frank  and  Jesse.  Well,  one  night  he  must 
have  decided  they  were  at  home,  for  the  house  was  sur 
rounded  while  we  were  asleep.  A  lot  of  torches  were 
put  around  in  the  yard  to  give  light.  Then  the  house 
was  set  on  fire  in  seven  places  and  a  bomb  was  thrown 
in  through  this  window."  He  pointed  to  a  window  in 
the  side  of  the  old  log  wing.  "It  was  about  midnight. 
My  mother  and  little  brother  and  I  were  in  the  room. 
Mother  kicked  the  bomb  into  the  fireplace  before  it  went 
off.  The  fuse  was  sputtering.  Maybe  she  even 
thought  of  throwing  the  thing  out  of  the  window  again. 
Anyhow,  when  it  exploded  it  blew  off  her  forearm  and 
killed  my  little  brother." 

"Come  in  the  house,"  invited  Frank  James.  "We  've 
got  a  piece  of  the  bomb  in  there." 

330 


THE  TAME  LION 

We  entered  the  old  cabin.  In  the  fireplace  marks  of 
the  explosion  are  still  visible.  The  piece  of  the  bomb 
which  they  preserve  is  a  bowl-shaped  bit  of  iron,  about 
the  size  of  a  bread-and-butter  plate. 

"What  was  their  idea  in  throwing  the  bomb?"  I  asked. 

"As  near  as  we  know,"  replied  Frank  James,  "the 
Pinkertons  figured  that  Jesse  and  I  were  sleeping  in  the 
front  part  of  the  house.  You  see,  there  's  a  little  porch 
running  back  from  the  main  house  to  the  door  of  the  old 
cabin.  They  must  have  figured  that  when  the  bomb 
went  off  we  would  run  out  on  the  porch  to  see  what  was 
the  matter.  Then  they  were  going  to  bag  us." 

"Well,  did  you  run  out?" 

"Evidently  not,"  said  Frank  James. 

"Were  you  there?"  I  asked. 

"Some  think  we  were  and  some  think  not,"  he  said. 

An  old  man  who  had  been  constable  of  the  township 
at  the  time  the  James  boys  were  on  the  warpath  had 
come  up  and  joined  us. 

"How  about  Askew?"  I  suggested.  "I  should  have 
thought  he  would  have  been  afraid  to  harbor  a  Pinkerton 


man." 


The  old  man  nodded.  "You  'd  of  thought  so, 
would  n't  you  ?"  he  agreed.  "Askew  was  shot  dead 
three  months  after  the  bomb  throwing.  He  was  carry 
ing  a  pail  of  milk  from  the  stable  to  the  house  when  he 
got  three  bullets  in  the  face." 

"Who  killed  him?"  I  asked. 

The  old  constable  allowed  his  eyes  to  drift  rumina- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

lively  over  the  neighboring  hillsides  before  replying. 
Frank  James  and  his  half  brother,  who  were  standing 
by,  also  heard  my  question,  and  they,  too,  became  inter 
ested  in  the  surrounding  scenery. 

"Well-1,"  said  the  old  constable  at  last,  "that 's  always 
been  a  question/' 

Mr.  Samuels  told  me  details  concerning  the  death  of 
Jesse  James. 

"Things  were  getting  pretty  hot  for  the  boys,"  he 
said.  "Big  rewards  had  been  offered  for  them.  Frank 
was  in  hiding  down  South,  and  Jesse  was  married  and 
living  under  an  assumed  name  in  a  little  house  he  had 
rented  in  St.  Joe,  Mo.  That  was  in  1882.  There 
had  been  some  hints  of  trouble  in  the  gang.  Dick 
Little,  one  of  the  boys,  had  gotten  in  with  the  authori 
ties,  and  it  had  been  rumored  that  he  had  won  the  Ford 
boys  over,  too.  Jesse  had  heard  that  report,  but  he  had 
confidence  in  Charlie  Ford.  Bob  Ford  he  did  n't  trust 
so  much.  Well,  Charlie  and  Bob  Ford  came  to  St.  Joe 
to  see  Jesse  and  his  wife.  They  were  sitting  around  the 
house  one  day,  and  Jesse's  wife  wanted  him  to  dust  a 
picture  for  her.  He  was  always  a  great  hand  to  help 
his  wife.  He  moved  a  chair  over  under  the  picture, 
and  before  getting  up  on  it  to  dust,  he  took  his  belt  and 
pistols  off  and  threw  them  on  the  bed.  Then  he  got  up 
on  the  chair.  While  he  was  standing  there  Bob  Ford 
shot  him  in  the  back. 

"Well,  Bob  died  a  violent  death  a  while  after  that. 

332 


THE  TAME  LION 

He  was  shot  by  a  man  named  Kelly  in  a  saloon  in  Creede, 
Colo.  And  Charlie  Ford  brooded  over  the  killing  of 
Jesse  and  committed  suicide  about  a  year  later.  The 
three  Younger  boys,  who  were  members  of  the  gang, 
too,  were  captured  a  while  after,  near  Northfield,  Minn., 
where  they  had  tried  to  rob  a  bank.  They  were  all  sent 
up  for  life.  Bob  Younger  died  in  the  penitentiary  at 
Stillwater,  but  Cole  and  Jim  were  paroled  and  not  al 
lowed  to  leave  the  State.  Jim  fell  in  love  with  a  woman, 
but  being  an  ex-convict,  he  could  n't  get  a  license  to 
marry  her.  That  broke  his  heart  and  he  committed  sui 
cide.  Cole  finally  got  a  full  pardon  and  is  now  living 
in  Jackson  County,  Missouri.  He  and  Frank  are  the 
only  two  members  of  the  Gang  who  are  left  and  the  only 
two  that  did  n't  die  either  in  the  penitentiary  or  by  vio 
lence.  Frank  was  in  hiding  for  years  with  a  big  price 
on  his  head.  At  last  he  gave  himself  up,  stood  trial,  and 
was  acquitted." 

Adherents  of  Bob  Ford  told  a  different  story  of  the 
motives  back  of  the  killing  of  Jesse  James.  They  con 
tend  that  Jesse  James  thought  Ford  had  been  "telling 
things"  and  ought  to  be  put  out  of  the  way,  and  that  in 
killing  Jesse,  Ford  practically  saved  his  own  life. 

Whatever  may  be  the  truth,  it  is  generally  agreed  that 
the  action  of  Jesse  James  in  taking  off  his  guns  and 
turning  his  back  on  the  Ford  boys  was  unprecedented. 
He  had  never  before  been  known  to  remove  his  weapons. 
Some  people  think  he  did  it  as  a  piece  of  bravado. 
Others  say  he  did  it  to  show  the  Ford  boys  that  he  trusted 

333 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

them.  But  whatever  the  occasion  for  the  action  it  gave 
Bob  Ford  his  chance — a  chance  which,  it  is  thought,  he 
would  not  have  dared  take  when  Jesse  James  was  armed. 

During  the  course  of  our  visit  Frank  James  "lec 
tured,"  more  or  less  constantly,  touching  on  a  variety  of 
subjects,  including  the  Mexican  situation  and  woman 
suffrage. 

"The  women  ought  to  have  the  vote,"  he  affirmed. 
"Look  what  we  owe  to  the  women.  A  man  gets  75  per 
cent,  of  what  goodness  there  is  in  him  from  his  mother, 
and  he  owes  at  least  40  per  cent,  of  all  he  makes  to  his 
wife.  Yes,  some  men  owe  more  than  that.  Some  of 
'em  owe  100  per  cent,  to  their  wives." 

Ethics  and  morality  seem  to  be  favorite  topics  with  the 
old  man,  and  he  makes  free  with  quotations  from  the 
Bible  and  from  Shakespeare  in  substantiation  of  his 
opinions. 

"City  people,"  I  heard  him  say  to  some  other  visitors 
who  came  while  we  were  there,  "think  that  we  folks  who 
live  on  farms  have  n't  got  no  sense.  Well,  we  may  not 
know  much,  but  what  we  do  know  we  know  darn  well. 
We  farmers  feed  all  these  smart  folks  in  the  cities,  so 
they  ought  to  give  us  credit  for  knowing  something." 

He  can  be  dry  and  waggish  as  he  shows  himself  off  to 
those  who  come  and  pay  their  fifty  cents.  It  was  amus 
ing  to  watch  him  and  listen  to  him.  Sometimes  he 
sounded  like  an  old  parson,  but  his  air  of  piety  sat  upon 
him  grotesquely  as  one  reflected  on  his  earlier  career. 

334 


i 

rt 

i^-i 
O 

I 

t/5 
a; 

ex 


O    <U 

af 

rt   *" 


THE  TAME  LION 

A  prelate  with  his  hat  cocked  rakishly  over  one  ear  could 
have  seemed  hardly  more  incongruous. 

At  some  of  his  virtuous  platitudes  it  was  hard  not  to 
smile.  All  the  time  I  was  there  I  kept  thinking  how  like 
he  was  to  some  character  of  Gilbert's.  All  that  is  needed 
to  make  Frank  James  complete  is  some  lyrics  and  some 
music  by  Sir  Arthur  Sullivan. 

There  are  almost  as  many  stories  of  the  James  Boys 
and  their  gang  to  be  heard  in  Excelsior  Springs  as  there 
are  houses  in  the  town.  But  as  Frank  James  will  not 
commit  himself,  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  verify  them. 
However,  I  shall  give  a  sample. 

I  was  told  that  Frank  and  Jesse  James  were  riding 
along  a  country  road  with  another  member  of  the  gang, 
and  that,  coming  to  a  farmhouse  shortly  after  noon,  they 
stopped  and  asked  the  woman  living  there  if  she  could 
give  them  "dinner" — as  the  midday  meal  is  called  in 
Kansas  and  Missouri. 

The  woman  said  she  could.  They  dismounted  and 
entered.  Then,  as  they  sat  in  the  kitchen  watching 
her  making  the  meal  ready,  Jesse  noticed  that  tears  kept 
coming  to  her  eyes.  Finally  he  asked  her  if  anything 
was  wrong.  At  that  she  broke  down  completely,  in 
forming  him  that  she  was  a  widow,  that  her  farm  was 
mortgaged  for  several  hundred  dollars,  and  that  the 
man  who  held  the  mortgage  was  coming  out  that  after 
noon  to  collect.  She  had  not  the  money  to  pay  him  and 
expected  to  lose  her  property. 

335 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"That 's  nothing  to  cry  about/'  said  Jesse.  "Here  's 
the  money. " 

To  the  woman,  who  had  not  the  least  idea  who  the 
men  were,  their  visit  must  have  seemed  like  one  from 
angels.  She  took  the  money,  thanking  them  profusely, 
and,  after  having  fed  them  well,  saw  them  ride  away. 

Later  in  the  day,  when  the  holder  of  the  mortgage  ap 
peared  upon  the  scene,  fully  expecting  to  foreclose,  he 
was  surprised  at  receiving  payment  in  full.  He  re 
ceipted,  mounted  his  horse,  and  set  out  on  his  return  to 
town.  But  on  the  way  back  a  strange  thing  befell  him. 
He  was  held  up  and  robbed  by  three  mysterious  masked 
men. 


336 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
KANSAS  JOURNALISM 

EVERYTHING    I    had   ever   heard    of    Kansas, 
every  one  I  had  ever  met  from  Kansas,  every 
thing  I  had  ever  imagined  about  Kansas,  made 
me  anxious  to  invade  that  State.     With  the  exception 
of  California,  there  was  no  State  about  which  I  felt  such 
a  consuming  curiosity.     Kansas  is,  and  always  has  been, 
a  State  of  freaks  and  wonders,  of  strange  contrasts,  of 
individualities  strong  and  sometimes  weird,  of  ideas  and 
ideals,  and  of  apocryphal  occurrences. 

Just  think  what  Kansas  has  been,  and  has  had,  and 
is!  Think  of  the  border  warfare  over  slavery  which 
began  as  early  as  1855;  of  settlers,  traveling  out  to 
"bleeding  Kansas"  overland,  from  New  England,  merely 
to  add  their  abolition  votes ;  of  early  struggles  with  the 
soil,  and  of  the  final  triumph.  Kansas  is  to-day  the 
first  wheat  State,  the  fourth  State  in  the  value  of  its 
assessed  property  (New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  Mas 
sachusetts  only  outranking  it),  and  the  only  State  in  the 
Union  which  is  absolutely  free  from  debt.  It  has  a 
more  American  population,  greater  wealth  and  fewer 
mortgages  per  capita,  more  women  running  for  office, 
more  religious  conservatism,  more  political  radicalism, 

337 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

more  students  in  higher  educational  institutions  in  pro 
portion  to  its  population,  more  homogeneity,  more  indi 
vidualism,  and  more  nasal  voices  than  any  other  State. 
As  Colonel  Nelson  said  to  me:  "All  these  new  ideas 
they  are  getting  everywhere  else  are  old  ideas  in  Kan 
sas."  And  why  should  n't  that  be  true,  since  Kansas  is 
the  State  of  Sockless  Jerry  Simpson,  William  Allen 
White,  Ed  Howe,  Walt  Mason,  Stubbs,  Funston,  Henry 
Allen,  Victor  Murdock,  and  Harry  Kemp;  the  State  of 
Susan  B.  Anthony,  Carrie  Nation,  and  Mary  Ellen  Lease 
— the  same  sweet  Mary  Ellen  who  remarked  that  "Kan 
sas  ought  to  raise  less  corn  and  more  hell !" 

Kansas  used  to  believe  in  Populism  and  free  silver. 
It  now  believes  in  hot  summers  and  a  hot  hereafter. 
It  is  a  prohibition  State  in  which  prohibition  actually 
works ;  a  State  like  nothing  so  much  as  some  scriptural 
kingdom — a  land  of  floods,  droughts,  cyclones,  and 
enormous  crops;  of  prophets  and  of  plagues.  And  in 
the  last  two  items  it  has  sometimes  seemed  to  actually 
outdo  the  Bible  by  combining  plague  and  prophet  in  a 
single  individual:  for  instance,  Carrie  Nation,  or  again, 
Harry  Kemp,  "the  tramp  poet  of  Kansas/1  who  is  by 
way  of  being  a  kind  of  Carrie  Nation  of  convention. 
Only  last  year  Kansas  performed  one  of  her  biblical 
feats,  when  she  managed,  somehow,  to  cause  the  water, 
in  the  deep  well  supplying  the  town  of  Girard,  to  turn 
hot.  But  that  is  nothing  to  what  she  has  done.  Do 
you  remember  the  plague  of  grasshoppers?  Not  in  the 
whole  Bible  is  there  to  be  found  a  more  perfect  pesti- 

338 


KANSAS  JOURNALISM 

lence  than  that  one,  which  occurred  in  Kansas  in  1872. 
One  day  a  cloud  appeared  before  the  sun.  It  came 
nearer  and  nearer  and  grew  into  a  strange,  glistening 
thing.  At  midday  it  was  dark  as  night.  Then,  from 
the  air,  the  grasshoppers  commenced  to  come,  like  a 
heavy  rain.  They  soon  covered  the  ground.  Railroad 
trains  were  stopped  by  them.  They  attacked  the  crops, 
which  were  just  ready  to  be  harvested,  eating  every  green 
thing,  and  even  getting  at  the  roots.  Then,  on  the  sec 
ond  day,  they  all  arose,  making  a  great  cloud,  as  before, 
and  turning  the  day  black  again.  Nor  can  any  man  say 
whence  they  came  or  whither  they  departed. 

Among  the  homely  philosophers  developed  through 
Kansas  journalism  several  are  widely  known,  most  cel 
ebrated  among  them  all  being  Ed  Howe  of  the  Atchison 
"Globe,"  William  Allen  White  of  the  Emporia  "Ga 
zette,"  and  Walt  Mason  of  the  same  paper. 

Howe  is  sixty  years  of  age.  He  was  owner  and  edi 
tor  of  the  "Globe"  for  more  than  thirty  years,  but  four 
years  ago,  when  his  paper  gave  him  a  net  income  of 
sixty  dollars  per  day,  he  turned  it  over  to  his  son  and 
retired  to  his  country  place,  "Potato  Hill,"  whence  he 
issues  occasional  manifestos. 

Some  of  Howe's  characteristic  paragraphs  from  the 
"Globe"  have  been  collected  and  published  in  book  form, 
under  the  title,  "Country  Town  Sayings."  Here  are  a 
few  examples  of  his  homely  humor  and  philosophy: 

So  many  things  go  wrong  that  we  are  tired  of  becom 
ing  indignant. 

339 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Watch  the  flies  on  cold  mornings ;  that  is  the  way  you  will 
feel  and  act  when  you  are  old. 

There  is  nothing  so  well  known  as  that  we  should  not  ex 
pect  something  for  nothing,  but  we  all  do  and  call  it  hope. 

When  half  the  men  become  fond  of  doing  a  thing,  the  other 
half  prohibit  it  by  law. 

Sometimes  I  think  that  I  have  nothing  to  be  thankful  for, 
but  when  I  remember  that  I  am  not  a  woman  I  am  content. 
Any  one  who  is  compelled  to  kiss  a  man  and  pretend  to  like  it 
is  entitled  to  sympathy. 

Somehow  every  one  hates  to  see  an  unusually  pretty  girl 
get  married.  It  is  like  taking  a  bite  out  of  a  very  fine-look 
ing  peach. 

What  people  say  behind  your  back  is  your  standing  in  the 
community  in  which  you  live. 

A  really  busy  person  never  knows  how  much  he  weighs. 

Walt  Mason  is  another  Kansas  philosopher-humorist. 
Recently  he  published  in  "Collier's  Weekly"  an  article 
describing  life,  particularly  with  regard  to  prohibition 
and  its  effects,  in  his  "hum  town,"  Emporia. 

Emporia  is  probably  as  well  known  as  any  town  of 
its  size  in  the  land.  It  has,  as  Mason  puts  it,  "ten  thou 
sand  people,  including  William  Allen  White."  Includ 
ing  Walt  Mason,  then,  it  must  have  about  eleven  thou 
sand.  Mason's  article  told  how  Stubbs,  on  becoming 
Governor  of  Kansas,  enforced  the  prohibition  laws,  and 
of  the  fine  effect  of  actual  prohibition  in  Emporia.  "No 
town  in  the  world,"  he  declares,  "wears  a  tighter  lid. 
There  is  no  drunkenness  because  there  is  nothing  to 
drink  stiffer  than  pink  lemonade.  You  will  see  a  uni 
corn  as  soon  as  you  will  see  a  drunken  man  in  the  streets 

340 


KANSAS  JOURNALISM 

of  the  town.  Emporia  has  reared  a  generation  of  young 
men  who  don't  know  what  alcohol  tastes  like,  who  have 
never  seen  the  inside  of  a  saloon.  Many  of  them  never 
saw  the  outside  of  one.  They  go  forth  into  the  world 
to  seek  their  fortunes  without  the  handicap  of  an  ac 
quired  thirst.  All  Emporia's  future  generations  of 
young  men  will  be  similarly  clean,  for  the  town  knows 
that  a  tight  lid  is  the  greatest  possible  blessing  and  no 
body  will  ever  dare  attempt  to  pry  it  loose." 

Having  spent  a  year  in  the  prohibition  State  of  Maine, 
I  was  skeptical  as  to  the  feasibility  of  a  practical  pro 
hibition.  Prohibition  in  Maine,  when  I  was  there,  was 
simply  a  joke — and  a  bad  joke  at  that,  for  it  involved 
bad  liquor.  Every  man  in  the  State  who  wanted  drink 
knew  where  to  get  it,  so  long  as  he  was  satisfied  with 
poor  beer,  or  whisky  of  about  the  quality  of  spar  varnish. 
Never  have  I  seen  more  drunkenness  than  in  that  State. 
The  slight  added  difficulty  of  getting  drink  only  made 
men  want  it  more,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that,  when  they 
got  it,  they  drank  more  at  a  sitting  than  they  would  have, 
had  liquor  been  more  generally  accessible. 

In  Kansas  it  is  different.  There  the  law  is  enforced. 
Blind  pigs  hardly  exist,  and  bootleggers  are  rare  birds 
who,  if  they  persist  in  bootlegging,  are  rapidly  converted 
into  jailbirds.  The  New  York  "Tribune"  printed,  re 
cently,  a  letter  stating  that  prohibition  is  a  signal  failure 
in  Kansas,  that  there  is  more  drinking  there  than  ever 
before,  and  that  "under  the  seats  of  all  the  automobiles 
in  Kansas  there  is  a  good-sized  canteen."  Whether 

34i 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

there  is  more  drinking  in  Kansas  than  ever  before,  I 
cannot  say.  I  do  know,  however,  both  from  personal 
observation  and  from  reliable  testimony,  that  there  is 
practically  no  drinking  in  the  portions  of  the  State  I 
visited.  As  I  am  not  a  prohibitionist,  this  statement 
is  nonpartizan.  But  I  may  add,  after  having  seen  the 
results  of  prohibition  in  Kansas,  I  look  upon  it  with 
more  favor.  Indeed,  I  am  a  partial  convert;  that  is, 
I  believe  in  it  for  you.  And  whatever  are  your  views 
on  prohibition,  I  think  you  will  admit  that  it  is  a  pretty 
temperate  State  in  which  a  girl  can  grow  to  womanhood 
and  say  what  one  Kansas  girl  said  to  me :  that  she  never 
saw  a  drunken  man  until  she  moved  away  from  Kansas. 

Three  religious  manifestations  occurred  while  I  was 
in  Kansas.  A  negro  preacher  came  out  with  a  plat 
form  declaring  definitely  in  favor  of  a  "hot  hell,"  an 
other  preacher  affirmed  that  he  had  the  answer  to  the 
"six  riddles  of  the  universe,"  and  William  Allen  White 
came  out  with  the  news  that  he  had  "got  religion." 

Now,  if  William  Allen  White  of  the  Emporia  "Ga 
zette"  really  has  done  that,  a  number  of  consequences 
are  likely  to  occur.  For  one  thing,  a  good  many  Amer 
icans  who  follow,  with  interest,  Mr.  White's  opinions, 
are  likely  also  to  follow  him  in  this ;  and  if  they  fail  to 
do  so  voluntarily,  they  are  likely  to  get  religion  stuffed 
right  down  their  throats.  If  White  decides  that  it  is 
good  for  them,  they  '11  get  it,  never  fear !  For  White  's 
the  kind  of  man  who  gives  us  what  is  good  for  us,  even 

342 


KANSAS  JOURNALISM 

if  it  kills  us.  Another  probable  result  of  White's  com 
ing  out  in  the  "Gazette"  in  favor  of  religion  would  be 
the  simultaneous  appearance,  in  the  "Gazette,"  of  anti- 
religious  propaganda  by  Walt  Mason.  That  is  the  way 
the  "Gazette"  is  run.  White  is  the  proprietor  and  has 
his  say  as  editor,  but  Walt  Mason,  who  is  associated 
with  him  on  the  "Gazette,"  also  has  his  say,  and  his  say 
is  far  from  being  dictated  by  the  publisher.  White, 
for  instance,  favors  woman  suffrage;  Mason  does  not. 
White  is  a  progressive;  Mason  is  a  standpatter.  White 
believes  in  the  commission  form  of  government,  which 
Emporia  has ;  Mason  does  not.  Mason  believes  in  White 
for  Governor  of  Kansas,  whereas  White,  himself,  pro 
tests  passionately  that  the  "Gazette"  is  against  "that 
man  White." 

Says  a  "Gazette"  editorial,  apropos  of  a  movement  to 
nominate  White  on  the  Progressive  ticket: 

We  are  onto  that  man  White.  Perhaps  he  pays  his 
debts.  He  may  be  kind  to  his  family.  But  he  is  not  the  man 
to  run  for  Governor.  And  if  he  is  a  candidate  for  Gov 
ernor  or  for  any  other  office,  we  propose  to  tell  the 
truth  about  him — how  he  robbed  the  county  with  a  padded 
printing  bill,  how  he  offered  to  trade  off  his  support  to  a 
Congressman  for  a  Government  building,  how  he  blackmailed 
good  citizens  and  has  run  a  bulldozing,  disreputable  news 
paper  in  this  town  for  twenty  years,  and  has  grafted  off  busi 
ness  men  and  sold  fake  mining  stock  and  advocated  anarchy 
and  assassinations. 

These  are  but  a  few  preliminary  things  that  occur  to  us 
as  the  moment  passes.  We  shall  speak  plainly  hereafter. 
A  word  to  the  wise  gathers  no  moss. 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

That  is  the  way  they  run  the  Emporia  "Gazette."  It 
is  a  kind  of  forum  in  which  White  and  Mason  air  their 
different  points  of  view,  for,  as  Mason  said  to  me: 
"The  only  public  question  on  which  White  and  I  agree 
is  the  infallibility  of  the  groundhog  as  a  weather 
prophet." 

White  and  Colonel  Nelson  of  the  Kansas  City  "Star" 
are  great  friends  and  great  admirers  of  each  other.  One 
day  they  were  talking  together  about  politics. 

"I  hear,"  said  Colonel  Nelson,  "that  Shannon  (Shan 
non  is  the  Democratic  boss  of  Kansas  City)  says  he 
wants  to  live  long  enough  to  go  to  the  State  Legislature 
and  get  a  law  passed  making  it  only  a  misdemeanor  to 
kill  an  editor." 

"Colonel,"  replied  White,  "I  think  such  a  law  would 
be  too  drastic.  I  think  editors  should  be  protected  during 
the  mating  season  and  while  caring  for  their  young. 
And,  furthermore,  I  think  no  man  should  be  allowed  to 
kill  more  editors  at  any  time  than  he  and  his  family  can 
eat." 


344 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 
A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

IT  was  about  one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  when  my 
companion  and  I  alighted  from  the  train  in  Law 
rence,  Kas.,  the  city  in  which  the  Quantrell  mas 
sacre  occurred,  as  mentioned  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
and  the  seat  of  the  University  of  Kansas. 

An  automobile  hack,  the  gasoline  equivalent  of  the 
dilapidated  horse-drawn  station  hack  of  earlier  times, 
was  standing  beside  the  platform.  We  consulted  the 
driver  about  luncheon. 

"You  kin  get  just  as  good  eating  at  the  lunch  room 
over  by  the  other  station/'  he  said,  "as  you  kin  at  the 
hotel,  and  't  won't  cost  you  so  much.  They  charge  fifty 
cents  for  dinner  at  the  Eldridge,  and  the  lunch  room  's 
only  a  quarter.  You  kin  get  anything  you  want  to  eat 
there — ham  and  eggs,  potatoes,  all  such  as  that." 

Somehow  we  were  suspicious  of  the  lunch  room,  but 
as  we  had  to  leave  our  bags  at  the  other  station,  we  told 
him  we  would  look  it  over,  got  in,  and  drove  across  the 
town.  The  lunch  room  proved  to  be  a  one-story  wooden 
structure,  painted  yellow,  and  supporting  one  of  those 
"false  fronts/'  representing  a  second  story,  which  one 
sees  so  often  in  little  western  towns,  and  which  of  all 
architectural  follies  is  the  worst,  since  it  deceives  no  one, 

345 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

makes  only  for  ugliness,  and  is  a  sheer  waste  of  labor 
and  material. 

We  did  not  even  alight  at  the  lunch  room,  but,  despite 
indications  of  hurt  feelings  on  the  part  of  our  charioteer, 
insisted  on  proceeding  to  the  Eldridge  House  and  lunch 
ing  there,  cost  what  it  might. 

The  Eldridge  House  stands  on  a  corner  of  the  wide 
avenue  known  as  Massachusetts,  the  principal  street, 
which,  like  the  town  itself,  indicates,  in  its  name,  a  New 
England  origin.  Lawrence  was  named  for  Amos  Law 
rence,  the  Massachusetts  abolitionist,  who,  though  he 
never  visited  Kansas,  gave  the  first  ten  thousand  dollars 
toward  the  establishment  of  the  university. 

Alighting  before  the  hotel,  I  noticed  a  building,  diag 
onally  opposite,  bearing  the  sign,  Bowersock  Theater. 
Billboards  before  the  theater  announced  that  Gaskell 
&  McVitty  (Inc.)  would  present  there  a  dramatization 
of  Harold  Bell  Wright's  "Shepherd  of  the  Hills."  As 
I  had  never  seen  a  dramatization  of  a  work  by  Amer 
ica's  best-selling  author,  nor  yet  a  production  by  Messrs. 
Gaskell  &  McVitty  (Inc.),  it  seemed  to  me  that  here  was 
an  opportunity  to  improve,  as  at  one  great  bound,  my 
knowledge  of  the  theater.  One  of  the  keenest  disap 
pointments  of  my  trip  was  the  discovery  that  this  play 
was  not  due  in  Lawrence  for  some  days,  as  I  would  even 
have  stopped  a  night  in  the  Eldridge  House,  if  necessary, 
to  have  attended  a  performance — especially  a  perfor 
mance  in  a  theater  bearing  the  poetic  name  of  Bower- 
sock. 

346 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

Rendered  reckless  by  my  disappointment,  I  retired  to 
the  Eldridge  House  dining  room  and  ordered  the  fifty- 
cent  luncheon.  If  it  was  the  worst  meal  I  had  on  my  en 
tire  trip,  it  at  least  fulfilled  an  expectation,  for  I  had 
heard  that  meals  in  western  hotels  were  likely  to  be  poor. 
It  is  only  just  to  add,  however,  that  a  number  of  sturdy 
men  who  were  seated  about  the  room  ate  more  heartily 
and  vastly  than  any  other  people  I  have  seen,  excepting 
German  tourists  on  a  Rhine  steamer.  I  envy  Kansans 
their  digestions.  For  my  own  part,  I  was  less  interested 
in  my  meal  than  in  the  waitresses.  Has  it  ever  struck 
you  that  hotel  waitresses  are  a  race  apart?  They  are 
not  like  other  women;  not  even  like  other  waitresses. 
They  are  even  shaped  differently,  having  waists  like 
wasps  and  bosoms  which  would  resemble  those  of  pouter 
pigeons  if  pouter  pigeons'  bosoms  did  not  seem  to  be 
a  part  of  them.  Most  hotel  waitresses  look  to  me  as 
though,  on  reaching  womanhood,  they  had  inhaled  a 
great  breath  and  held  it  forever  after.  Only  the  fear  of 
being  thought  indelicate  prevents  my  discussing  further 
this  curious  phenomenon.  However,  I  am  reminded 
that,  as  Owen  Johnson  has  so  truly  said,  American 
writers  are  not  permitted  the  freedom  which  is  accorded 
to  their  Gallic  brethren.  There  is,  I  trust,  however, 
nothing  improper  in  making  mention  of  the  striking  dis 
play  of  jewelry  wrorn  by  the  waitresses  at  the  Eldridge 
House.  All  wore  diamonds  in  their  hair,  and  not  one 
wore  less  than  fifty  thousand  dollars'  worth.  These 
diamonds  were  set  in  large  hairpins,  and  the  show  of 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

gems  surpassed  any  I  have  ever  seen  by  daylight 
Luncheon  at  the  Eldridge  suggests,  in  this  respect,  a  first 
night  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in  New  York, 
and  if  it  is  like  that  at  luncheon,  what  must  it  be  at  dinner 
time?  Do  they  wear  tiaras  and  diamond  stomachers? 
I  regret  that  I  am  unable  to  say,  for,  immediately  after 
luncheon,  I  kept  an  appointment,  previously  made,  with 
the  driver  of  the  auto  hack. 

"Where  do  you  boys  want  to  go  now?"  he  asked  my 
companion  and  me  as  we  appeared. 

"To  the  university/'  I  said. 

"Students?"  he  asked,  with  kindly  interest. 

Neither  of  us  had  been  taken  for  a  student  in  many, 
many  years;  the  agreeable  suggestion  was  worth  an 
extra  quarter  to  him.  Perhaps  he  had  guessed  as 
much. 

The  drive  took  us  out  Massachusetts  Avenue,  which, 
when  it  escapes  the  business  part  of  town,  becomes  an 
agreeable,  tree-bordered  thoroughfare,  reminiscent  of 
New  England.  Presently  our  rattle-trap  machine 
turned  to  the  right  and  began  the  ascent  of  a  hill  so 
steep  as  to  cause  the  driver  to  drop  back  into  "first." 
It  was  a  long  hill,  too ;  we  crawled  up  for  several  blocks 
before  attaining  the  plateau  at  the  top,  where  stands  the 
University  of  Kansas. 

The  setting  of  the  college  surprised  us,  for,  if  there 
was  one  thing  that  we  had  expected  more  than  another, 
it  was  that  Kansas  would  prove  absolutely  flat.  Yet 
here  we  were  on  a  mountain  top — at  least  they  call  it 

348 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

Mount  Oread — with  the  valley  of  the  Kaw  River  below, 
and  what  seemed  to  be  the  whole  of  Kansas  spread  round 
about,  like  a  vast  panoramic  mural  decoration  for  the 
university — a  maplike  picture  suggesting  those  splen 
did  decorations  of  Jules  Guerin's  in  the  Pennsylvania 
Terminal  in  Xew  York. 

I  know  of  no  university  occupying  a  more  suitable  po 
sition  or  a  more  commanding  view,  although  it  must  be 
recorded  that  the  university  has  been  more  fortunate 
in  the  selection  of  its  site  than  in  its  architecture  and 
the  arrangement  of  its  grounds.  Like  other  colleges 
founded  forty  or  fifty  years  ago,  the  University  of  Kan 
sas  started  in  a  small  w^ay,  and  failed  entirely  to  antici 
pate  the  greatness  of  its  future.  The  campus  seems  to 
have  "just  growed"  without  regard  to  the  grouping  of 
buildings  or  to  harmony  between  them,  and  the  archi 
tecture  is  generally  poor.  Nevertheless  there  is  a  sort 
of  homely  charm  about  the  place,  with  its  unimposing, 
helter-skelter  piles  of  brick  and  stone,  its  fine  trees,  and 
its  sweeping  view. 

It  was  principally  with  the  purpose  of  visiting  the 
University  of  Kansas  that  we  stopped  in  Lawrence.  We 
had  heard  much  of  the  great,  energetic  state  colleges, 
which  had  come  to  hold  such  an  important  place  educa 
tionally,  and  in  the  general  life  of  the  Middle  West  and 
West,  and  had  planned  to  visit  one  of  them.  Originally 
we  had  in  mind  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  because 
we  had  heard  so  much  about  it ;  later,  however,  it  struck 
us  that  everybody  else  had  heard  a  good  deal  about  it, 

349 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

too,  and  that  we  had  better  visit  some  less  widely  ad 
vertised  college.  We  hit  on  the  University  of  Kansas 
because  Kansas  is  the  most  typical  American  agricul 
tural  state,  and  also  because  a  Kansan,  whom  we  met 
on  the  train,  informed  us  that  "In  Kansas  we  are  hell  on 
education." 

In  detail  I  knew  little  of  these  big  state  schools.  I 
had  heard,  of  course,  of  the  broadening  of  their  activi 
ties  to  include  a  great  variety  of  general  state  service, 
aside  from  their  main  purpose  of  giving  some  sort  of 
college  education,  at  very  low  cost,  to  young  men  and 
women  of  rural  communities  who  desire  to  continue  be 
yond  the  public  schools.  I  must  confess,  however,  that, 
aside  from  such  great  universities  as  those  of  Michigan 
and  Wisconsin,  I  had  imagined  that  state  universities 
were,  in  general,  crude  and  ill  equipped,  by  comparison 
with  the  leading  colleges  of  the  East. 

If  the  University  of  Kansas  may,  as  I  have  been  credi 
bly  informed,  be  considered  as  a  typical  western  state 
university,  then  I  must  confess  that  my  preconceptions 
regarding  such  institutions  were  as  far  from  the  facts 
as  preconceptions,  in  general,  are  likely  to  be.  The  Uni 
versity  of  Kansas  is  anything  but  backward.  It  is, 
upon  the  contrary,  amazingly  complete  and  amazingly 
advanced.  Not  only  has  it  an  excellent  equipment  and 
a  live  faculty,  but  also  a  remarkably  energetic,  eager 
student  body,  much  more  homogeneous  and  much  more 
unanimous  in  its  hunger  for  education  than  student 
bodies  in  eastern  universities,  as  I  have  observed  them. 

350 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

The  University  of  Kansas  has  some  three  thousand 
students,  about  a  thousand  of  them  women.  Consider 
ably  more  than  half  of  them  are  either  partly  or  wholly 
self-supporting,  and  12  per  cent,  of  them  earn  their  way 
during  the  school  months.  The  grip  of  the  university 
upon  the  State  may  best  be  shown  by  statistics — if  I  may 
be  forgiven  the  brief  use  of  them.  Out  of  103  counties 
in  Kansas  only  seven  were  not  represented  by  students 
in  the  university  in  the  years  1910-12 — the  seven  coun 
ties  being  thinly  settled  sections  in  the  southwest  corner 
of  the  State.  Seventy-three  per  cent,  of  last  year's  stu 
dents  were  born  in  Kansas;  more  than  a  third  of  them 
came  from  villages  of  less  than  2,000  population;  and 
the  father  of  one  out  of  every  three  students  was  a 
farmer. 

Life  at  the  university  is  comfortable,  simple,  and  very 
cheap,  the  average  cost,  per  capita,  for  the  school  year 
being  perhaps  $200,  including  school  expenses,  board, 
social  expenses,  etc.,  nor  are  there  great  social  and 
financial  gaps  between  certain  groups  of  students,  as  in 
some  eastern  colleges.  The  university  is  a  real  democ 
racy,  in  which  each  individual  is  judged  according  to 
certain  standards  of  character  and  behavior. 

"Now  and  again,"  one  young  man  told  me,  with  a 
sardonic  smile,  "we  get  a  country  boy  who  eats  with 
his  knife.  He  may  be  a  mighty  good  sort,  but  he  is  n't 
civilized.  When  a  fellow  like  that  comes  along,  we  take 
him  in  hand  and  tell  him  that,  aside  from  the  danger  of 
cutting  his  mouth,  we  have  certain  peculiar  whims  on 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  subject  of  manners  at  table,  and  that  it  is  better  for 
him  to  eat  as  we  do,  because  if  he  does  n't  it  makes  him 
conspicuous.  Inside  a  week  you  '11  see  a  great  change  in 
a  boy  of  that  kind." 

Not  only  is  the  cost  to  the  student  low  at  the  Univer 
sity  of  Kansas,  but  the  cost  of  operating  the  university 
is  slight.  In  the  year  1909-10  (the  last  year  on  which 
I  have  figures)  the  cost  of  operating  sixteen  leading  col 
leges  in  the  United  States  averaged  $232  per  student. 
The  cost  per  student  at  the  University  of  Kansas  is  $175. 
One  reason  for  this  low  per  capita  cost  is  the  fact  that 
the  salaries  of  professors  at  the  University  of  Kansas 
are  unusually  small.  They  are  too  small.  It  is  one  of 
the  reproaches  of  this  rich  country  of  ours  that,  though 
we  are  always  ready  to  spend  vast  sums  on  college  build 
ings,  we  pay  small  salaries  to  instructors;  although  it 
is  the  faculty,  much  more  than  the  buildings,  which  make 
a  college.  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  Har 
vard  pays  the  highest  maximum  salaries  to  professors, 
of  any  American  university — $5,500  is  the  Harvard 
maximum.  California,  Cornell,  and  Yale  have  a  $5,000 
maximum.  Kansas  has  the  lowest  maximum  I  know 
of,  the  greatest  salary  paid  to  a  professor  there,  accord 
ing  to  last  year's  figures,  having  been  $2,500. 

Before  leaving  New  York  I  was  told  by  a  distinguished 
professor  in  an  eastern  university  that  the  students  he 
got  from  the  West  had,  almost  invariably,  more  initiative 
and  energy  than  those  from  the  region  of  the  Atlantic 
seaboard. 

352 


A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

"Just  what  do  you  mean  by  the  West?"  I  asked. 

"In  general/'  he  replied,  "I  mean  students  from  north 
and  west  of  Chicago.  If  I  show  an  eastern  boy  a  ma 
chine  which  he  does  not  understand,  the  chances  are 
that  he  will  put  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  shake  his 
head  dubiously.  But  if  I  show  the  same  machine  to  a 
western  boy,  he  will  go  right  at  it,  unafraid.  Western 
boys  usually  have  more  'gumption/  as  they  call  it." 

Brief  as  was  my  visit  to  the  University  of  Kansas,  I 
felt  that  there,  indeed,  was  "gumption."  And  it  is  easy  to 
account  for.  The  breed  of  men  and  women  who  are 
being  raised  in  the  Western  States  is  a  sturdier  breed 
than  is  being  produced  in  the  East.  They  have  just  as 
much  fun  in  their  college  life  as  any  other  students  do, 
but  practically  none  of  them  go  to  college  just  "to  have 
a  good  time,"  or  with  the  even  less  creditable  purpose 
of  improving  their  social  position.  Kansas  is  still  too 
near  to  first  principles  to  be  concerned  with  superficiali 
ties.  It  goes  to  college  to  work  and  learn,  and  its  rea 
son  for  wishing  to  learn  is,  for  the  most  part,  prac 
tical.  One  does  not  feel,  in  the  University  of  Kansas, 
the  aspiration  for  a  vague  culture  for  the  sake  of  culture 
only.  It  is,  above  all,  a  practical  university,  and  its 
graduates  are  notably  free  from  the  cultural  affectations 
which  mark  graduates  of  some  eastern  colleges,  envel 
oping  them  in  a  fog  of  pedantry  which  they  mistake 
for  an  aura  of  erudition,  and  from  which  many  of  them 
never  emerge. 

Directness,  sincerity,  strength,  thoughtfulness,  and 

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practicality  are  Kansas  qualities.  Even  the  very  young 
men  and  women  of  Kansas  are  not  far  removed  from 
pioneer  forefathers,  and  it  must  be  remembered  that 
the  Kansas  pioneer  differed  from  some  others  in  that  he 
possessed  a  strain  of  that  Puritan  love  of  freedom  which 
not  only  brought  his  forefathers  to  Plymouth,  but 
brought  him  overland  to  Kansas,  as  has  been  said,  to 
cast  his  vote  for  abolition.  Naturally,  then,  the  zeal 
which  fired  him  and  his  ancestors  is  reflected  in  his 
children  and  his  grandchildren.  And  that,  I  think,  is 
one  reason  why  Kansas  has  developed  "cranks." 

Contrasting  curiously  with  Kansas  practicality,  how 
ever,  there  must  be  among  the  people  of  that  State  an 
other  quality  of  a  very  different  kind,  which  I  might 
have  overlooked  had  I  not  chanced  to  see  a  copy  of  the 
"Graduate  Magazine,"  and  had  I  not  happened  to  read 
the  list  of  names  of  graduates  who  returned  to  the  uni 
versity  for  the  last  commencement.  The  list  was  not 
a  very  long  one,  yet  from  it  I  culled  the  following  collec 
tion  of  given  names  for  women :  Ava,  Alverna,  Angie, 
Ora,  Amida,  Lalia,  Nadine,  Edetha,  Violetta,  Flo, 
Claudia,  Evadne,  Nelle,  Ola,  Lanora,  Amarette,  Ber 
nese,  Minta,  Juanita,  Babetta,  Lenore,  Letha,  Leta, 
Neva,  Tekla,  Delpha,  Oreta,  Opal,  Flaude,  Iva,  Lola, 
Leora,  and  Zippa. 

Clearly,  then,  Kansas  has  a  penchant  for  "fancy" 
names.  Why,  I  wonder  ?  Is  it  not,  perhaps,  a  reaction, 
on  the  part  of  parents,  against  the  eternal  struggle  with 
the  soil,  the  eternal  practicalities  of  farm  life  ?  Is  it  an 

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A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

expression  of  the  craving  of  Kansas  mothers  for  poetry 
and  romance?  It  seems  to  me  that  I  detect  a  wistful 
something  in  those  names  of  Kansas's  daughters. 

Much  has  been  heard,  in  the  last  few  years,  of  the 
"Wisconsin  idea"  of  linking  up  the  state  university  with 
the  practical  life  of  the  people  of  the  State.  This  idea 
did  not  originate  in  Wisconsin,  however,  but  in  Kansas, 
where  as  long  ago  as  1868  a  law  was  passed  making 
the  chancellor  of  the  university  State  Sealer  of  Weights 
and  Measures.  Since  that  time  the  connection  between 
the  State  and  its  great  educational  institutions  has  con 
tinued  to  grow,  until  now  the  two  are  bound  together  by 
an  infinite  number  of  ties. 

For  example,  no  municipality  in  Kansas  may  install 
a  water  supply,  waterworks,  or  sewage  plant  without 
obtaining  from  the  university  sanction  of  the  arrange 
ments  proposed.  The  dean  of  the  University  School  of 
Medicine,  Dr.  S.  J.  Crumbine,  is  also  secretary  of  the 
State  Board  of  Health.  It  was  Dr.  Crumbine  who 
started  the  first  agitation  against  the  common  drinking 
cup,  the  roller  towel,  etc.,  and  he  succeeded  in  having 
a  law  passed  by  the  State  Legislature  in  Kansas  abolish 
ing  these.  He  also  accomplished  the  passage  of  a  law 
providing  for  the  inspection  of  hotels,  and  requiring, 
among  other  things,  ten-foot  sheets.  All  water  analysis 
for  the  State  is  done  at  the  university,  as  well  as  analysis 
in  connection  with  food,  drugs,  etc.,  and  student  work 
is  utilized  in  a  practical  way  in  connection  with  this 
state  service,  wherever  possible. 

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Passing  through  the  laboratories,  I  saw  many  exam 
ples  of  this  activity,  and  was  shown  quantities  of  samples 
of  foods,  beverages,  and  patent  medicines,  which  had 
failed  to  comply  with  the  requirements  of  the  law.  There 
was  an  artificial  cider  made  up  from  alcohol  and  coal- 
tar  dye;  a  patent  medicine  called  "Spurmax,"  sold  for 
fifty  cents  per  package,  yet  containing  nothing  but  col 
ored  Epsom  salts;  another  patent  medicine  sold  at  the 
same  price,  containing  the  same  material  plus  a  little 
borax;  bottles  of  "Silver Top,"  a  beer-substitute,  designed 
to  evade  the  prohibition  law — bottles  with  sly  labels, 
looking  exactly  alike,  but  which,  on  examination,  proved, 
in  some  cases,  to  have  mysteriously  dropped  the  first 
two  letters  in  the  word  "unfermented."  All  sorts  of 
things  were  being  analyzed;  paints  were  being  inves 
tigated  for  adulteration;  shoes  were  being  examined  to 
see  that  they  conformed  to  the  Kansas  "pure-shoe  law," 
which  requires  that  shoes  containing  substitutes  for 
leather  be  stamped  to  indicate  the  fact. 

"This  law,"  remarks  "The  Masses,"  "is  being  fought 
by  Kansas  shoe  dealers  who  declare  it  unconstitutional. 
Apparently  the  right  to  wear  paper  shoes  without  know 
ing  it  is  another  of  our  precious  heritages." 

The  same  department  of  the  university  is  engaged  in 
showing  different  Kansas  towns  how  to  soften  their 
water  supply;  efforts  are  also  being  made  to  find  some 
means  of  softening  the  fiber  of  the  Yucca  plant — a  weed 
which  the  farmers  of  western  Kansas  have  been  trying 
to  get  rid  of — so  that  it  may  be  utilized  for  making  rope. 

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The  Kansas  state  flower  is  also  being  put  to  use  for 
the  manufacture  of  sunflower  oil,  which,  in  Russia,  is 
burned  in  lamps,  and  which  Kansas  already  uses,  to  some 
extent,  as  a  salad  dressing  and  also  as  a  substitute  for 
linseed  oil. 

The  university  has  also  given  attention  to  the  situa 
tion  with  regard  to  natural  gas  in  Kansas,  Professor 
Cady  having  recently  appeared  before  the  State  Board 
of  Utilities  recommending  that,  as  natural  gas  varies 
greatly  as  to  heat  units,  the  heat  unit,  rather  than  the 
measured  foot,  be  made  the  basis  for  all  charges  by  the 
gas  companies. 

In  one  room  I  came  upon  a  young  man  who  was  in 
charge  of  a  machine  for  the  manufacture  of  liquid  air. 
This  product  is  packed  in  vacuum  cans  and  shipped  to 
all  parts  of  the  world.  I  had  never  seen  it  before.  It 
is  strange  stuff,  having  a  temperature  of  300  degrees 
below  zero.  The  young  man  took  a  little  of  it  in  his 
hand  (it  looked  like  a  small  pill  made  of  water),  and, 
after  holding  it  for  an  instant,  threw  it  on  the  floor, 
where  it  evaporated  instantly.  He  then  took  some  in 
his  mouth  and  blew  it  out  in  the  form  of  a  frosty  smoke. 
He  was  an  engaging  young  man,  and  seemed  to  enjoy 
immensely  doing  tricks  with  liquid  air. 

In  the  department  of  entomology  there  is  also  great 
activity.  Professor  S.  J.  Hunter  has,  among  other  re 
searches,  been  conducting  for  the  last  three  years  elab 
orate  experiments  designed  to  prove  or  disprove  the 
Sambon  theory  with  regard  to  pellagra. 

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"Pellagra,"  Professor  Hunter  explained  to  me,  "has 
been  known  in  Italy  since  1782,  but  has  existed  in  the 
United  States  for  less  than  thirty  years,  although  it  is 
now  found  in  nearly  half  our  States  and  has  become 
most  serious  in  the  South.  Its  cause,  character,  and 
cure  are  unknown,  although  there  are  several  theories. 
One  theory  is  that  it  is  caused  by  poisoning  due  to  the 
excessive  use  of  corn  products;  another  attributes  it  to 
cottonseed  products;  and  the  Sambon  theory,  dating 
from  1910,  attributes  it  to  the  sand  fly,  the  theory  being 
that  the  fly  becomes  infected  through  sucking  the  blood 
of  a  victim  of  pellagra,  and  then  communicates  the  in 
fection  by  biting  other  persons.  In  order  to  ascertain 
the  truth  or  untruth  of  this  contention,  we  have  bred 
uncontaminated  sand  flies,  and  after  having  allowed 
them  to  bite  infected  persons,  have  let  them  bite  mon 
keys.  The  result  of  these  experiments  is  not  yet  com 
plete.  One  monkey  is,  however,  sick,  at  this  time,  and 
his  symptoms  are  not  unlike  certain  symptoms  of  pella- 
gra." 

The  university's  Museum  of  Natural  History  con 
tains  the  largest  single  panoramic  display  of  stuffed 
animals  in  the  world.  This  exhibition  is  contained  in 
one  enormous  case  running  around  an  extensive  room, 
and  shows,  in  suitable  landscape  settings,  American  ani 
mals  from  Alaska  to  the  tropics.  The  collection  is  val 
ued  at  $300,000,  and  was  made,  almost  entirely,  by  mem 
bers  of  the  faculty  and  students. 

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A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

The  Department  of  Physical  Education  is  in  charge 
of  Dr.  James  Naismith,  who  can  teach  a  man  to  swim  in 
thirty  minutes,  and  who  is  famous  as  the  inventor  of 
the  game  of  basketball.  Dr.  Naismith  devised  basket 
ball  as  a  winter  substitute  for  football,  and  gave  the 
game  its  name  because,  originally,  he  used  peach  baskets 
at  his  goals. 

A  very  complete  system  of  university  extension  is 
operated,  covering  an  enormous  field,  reaching  schools, 
colleges,  clubs,  and  individuals,  and  assisting  them  in  al 
most  all  branches  of  education;  also  a  Department  of 
Correspondence  Study,  covering  about  150  courses. 
Likewise,  in  the  Department  of  Journalism  a  great 
amount  of  interesting  and  practical  work  is  being  done 
on  the  editorial,  business,  and  mechanical  sides  of  news 
paper  publishing.  Following  the  general  practice  of 
other  departments  of  the  university,  the  Department  of 
Journalism  places  its  equipment  and  resources  at  the 
service  of  Kansas  editors  and  publishers.  A  clearing 
house  is  maintained  where  buyers  and  sellers  of  news 
paper  properties  may  be  brought  together,  printers  are 
assisted  in  making  estimates,  cost-system  blanks  are 
supplied,  and  job  type  is  cast  and  furnished  free  to 
Kansas  publishers  in  exchange  for  their  old  worn-out 
type. 

These  are  but  a  few  scattered  examples  of  the  inner 
and  outer  activities  of  the  University  of  Kansas,  as  I 
noted  them  during  the  course  of  an  afternoon  and  even- 

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ing  spent  there.  For  me  the  visit  was  an  education.  I 
wish  that  all  Americans  might  visit  such  a  university. 
But  more  than  that,  I  wish  that  some  system  might  be 
devised  for  the  exchange  of  students  between  great  col 
leges  in  different  parts  of  the  country.  Doubtless  it 
would  be  a  good  thing  for  certain  students  at  western 
colleges  to  learn  something  of  the  more  elaborate  life 
and  the  greater  sophistication  of  the  great  colleges  of 
the  East,  but  more  particularly  I  think  that  vast  bene 
fits  might  accrue  to  certain  young  men  from  Harvard, 
Yale,  and  similar  institutions,  by  contact  with  such  uni 
versities  as  that  of  Kansas.  Unfortunately,  however, 
the  eastern  students,  who  would  be  most  benefited  by 
such  a  shift,  would  be  the  very  ones  to  oppose  it.  Above 
all  others,  I  should  like  to  see  young  eastern  aristocrats, 
spenders,  and  disciples  of  false  culture  shipped  out  to 
the  West.  It  would  do  them  good,  and  I  think  they 
would  be  amazed  to  find  out  how  much  they  liked  it. 
However,  this  idea  of  an  exchange  is  not  based  so  much 
on  the  theory  that  it  would  help  the  individual  student 
as  on  the  theory  that  greater  mutual  comprehension  is 
needed  by  Americans.  We  do  not  know  our  country 
or  our  fellow  countrymen  as  we  should.  We  are  too 
localized.  We  do  not  understand  the  United  States 
as  Germans  understand  Germany,  as  the  French  under 
stand  France,  or  as  the  British  understand  Great 
Britain.  This  is  partly  because  of  the  great  distances 
which  separate  us,  partly  because  of  the  heterogeneous 
nature  of  our  population,  and  partly  because,  being  a 

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A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

young  civilization,  we  flock  abroad  in  quest  of  the  ancient 
charm  and  picturesqueness  of  Europe.  The  "See  Amer 
ica  First"  idea,  which  originated  as  the  advertising  catch 
line  of  a  western  railroad,  deserves  serious  consideration, 
not  only  because  of  what  America  has  to  offer  in  the  way 
of  scenery,  but  also  because  of  what  she  has  to  offer  in 
the  way  of  people.  I  found  that  a  great  many  thought 
ful  persons  all  over  the  United  States  were  considering 
this  point. 

In  Detroit,  for  example,  the  Lincoln  National  High 
way  project  is  being  vigorously  pushed  by  the  automo 
bile  manufacturers,  and  within  a  short  time  streams  of 
motors  will  be  crossing  the  continent.  As  a  means  of 
making  Americans  better  acquainted  with  one  another 
the  automobile  has  already  done  good  work,  but  its  serv 
ice  in  that  direction  has  only  begun. 

Mr.  Charles  C.  Moore,  president  of  the  Panama-Pa 
cific  Exposition,  whom  I  met,  later,  in  San  Francisco, 
told  me  that  the  authorities  of  the  exposition  had  been 
particularly  interested  in  the  idea  of  promoting  friendli 
ness  between  Americans. 

"We  Americans/'  said  Mr.  Moore,  "are  still  wonder 
ing  what  America  really  is,  and  what  Americans  really 
are.  One  of  the  greatest  benefits  of  a  fair  like  ours  is 
the  opportunity  it  gives  us  to  form  friendly  ties  with  peo 
ple  from  all  over  the  country.  We  shall  have  a  great 
series  of  congresses,  conferences,  and  conventions,  and 
will  provide  the  use  of  halls  without  charge.  The  rail 
roads  are  cooperating  with  us  by  making  low  round-trip 

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rates  which  enable  the  visitor  to  come  one  way  and  re 
turn  by  another  route,  so  that,  besides  seeing  the  fair, 
they  can  see  the  country.  The  more  Americans  there 
are  who  become  interested  in  seeing  the  country,  the  bet 
ter  it  is  for  us  and  for  the  United  States.  Any  one  re 
quiring  proof  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  a  closer  mutual 
understanding  between  the  people  of  this  country  has 
but  to  look  at  the  condition  which  exists  in  national 
politics.  What  do  the  Atlantic  Coast  Congressmen  and 
the  Pacific  Coast  Congressmen  really  know  of  one  an 
other's  requirements?  Little  or  nothing  as  a  rule. 
They  reach  conclusions  very  largely  by  exchanging 
votes :  T  '11  vote  for  your  measure  if  you  '11  vote  for 
mine/  That  system  has  cost  this  country  millions  upon 
millions.  If  I  had  my  way,  there  would  be  a  law  mak 
ing  it  necessary  for  each  Congressman  to  visit  every 
State  in  the  Union  once  in  two  years." 

In  an  earlier  chapter  I  mentioned  Quantrell's  gang 
of  border  ruffians,  of  which  Frank  and  Jesse  James  were 
members,  and  referred  to  the  Lawrence  massacre  con 
ducted  by  the  gang. 

In  all  the  border  trouble,  from  1855-6  to  the  time  of 
the  Civil  War,  Lawrence  figured  as  the  antislavery  cen 
ter.  That  and  the  ill  feeling  engendered  by  differences 
of  opinion  along  the  Missouri  border  with  regard  to 
slavery,  caused  the  massacre.  It  occurred  on  August 
21,  1863.  Lawrence  had  been  expecting  an  attack  by 
Quantrell  for  some  time  before  that  date,  and  had  at 
one  period  posted  guards  on  the  roads  leading  to  the 

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A  COLLEGE  TOWN 

eastward.  After  a  time,  however,  this  precaution  was 
given  up,  enabling  Quantrel!  to  surprise  the  town  and 
make  a  clean  sweep.  He  arrived  at  Lawrence  at  5.30 
in  the  morning  with  about  450  men.  Frank  James  told 
me  that  he  himself  was  not  present  at  the  massacre,  as 
he  had  been  shot  a  short  time  before  and  temporarily  dis 
abled. 

Lawrence,  which  then  had  a  population  of  about  1,200, 
was  caught  entirely  unawares,  and  was  absolutely  at 
the  mercy  of  the  ruffians.  A  good  many  of  the  latter 
got  drunk,  which  added  to  the  horror,  for  these  men 
were  bad  enough  when  sober.  They  burned  down  al 
most  the  entire  business  section  of  the  town,  as  well  as 
a  great  many  houses,  and  going  into  the  homes,  dragged 
out  163  men,  unarmed  and  defenseless,  and  cold-blood 
edly  slaughtered  them  in  the  streets,  before  the  eyes  of 
their  wives  and  children.  Very  few  men  who  were  in 
the  town  at  the  time,  escaped,  but  among  the  survivors 
were  twenty-five  men  who  were  in  the  Free  State  Hotel, 
the  proprietor  of  which  had  once  befriended  Quantrell, 
and  was  for  that  reason  spared  together  with  his  guests. 
Some  forty  or  fifty  persons  living  in  Lawrence  at  the 
present  time  remember  the  massacre,  most  of  these  be 
ing  women  who  saw  their  husbands,  fathers,  brothers, 
or  sons  killed  in  the  midst  of  the  general  orgy.  Many 
stories  of  narrow  escapes  are  preserved.  In  one  instance 
a  woman  whose  house  had  been  set  on  fire,  wrapped  her 
husband  in  a  rug,  and  dragged  him,  thus  enveloped,  in 
the  yard  as  though  attempting  to  save  her  rug  from  the 

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conflagration.  There  he  remained  until,  on  news  that 
soldiers  were  on  the  way  to  the  relief  of  the  stricken 
town,  the  Quantrell  gang  withdrew. 


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CHAPTER  XXIX 
MONOTONY 

WE  left  Lawrence  late  at  night  and  went  im 
mediately  to  bed  upon  the  train.     When  I 
awoke  in  the  morning  the  car  was  standing 
still.     In  the  ventilators  overhead,  I  heard  the  steady 
monotonous  whistling  of  the  wind.     As  I  became  more 
awake  I  began  to  wonder  where  we  were  and  why  we 
were  not  moving.     Presently  I  raised  the  window  shade 
and  looked  out. 

How  many  things  there  are  in  life  which  we  think  we 
know  from  hearsay,  yet  which,  when  we  actually  en 
counter  them,  burst  upon  us  with  a  new  and  strange  sig 
nificance!  I  had  believed,  for  example,  that  I  realized 
the  vastness  of  the  United  States  without  having  actu 
ally  traveled  across  the  country,  yet  I  had  not  realized 
it  at  all,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  can  possibly 
realize  it  without  having  felt  it,  in  the  course  of  a  !ong 
journey.  So  too,  with  the  interminable  rolling  desolation 
of  the  prairies,  and  the  likeness  of  the  prairies  to  the 
sea :  I  had  imagined  that  I  understood  the  prairies  with 
out  having  laid  eyes  upon  them,  but  when  I  raised  my 
window  shade  that  morning,  and  found  the  prairies 
stretching  out  before  me,  I  was  as  surprised,  as  stunned, 

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as  though  I  had  never  heard  of  them  before,  and  the 
idea  came  to  me  like  an  original  thought:  How  per 
fectly  enormous  they  are !  And  how  like  the  sea ! 

I  had  discovered  for  myself  the  truth  of  another  plati 
tude. 

For  a  long  time  I  lay  comfortably  in  my  berth,  gazing 
out  at  the  appalling  spread  of  land  and  sky.  Even  at 
sea  the  great  bowl  of  the  sky  had  never  looked  so  vast 
to  me.  The  land  was  nothing  to  it.  In  the  foreground 
there  was  nothing;  in  the  middle  distance,  nothing;  in 
the  distance,  nothing — nothing,  nothing,  nothing,  met 
the  eye  in  all  that  treeless  waste  of  brown  and  gray 
which  lay  between  the  railroad  line  and  the  horizon,  on 
which  was  discernible  the  faint  outlines  of  several  ships 
— ships  which  were  in  reality  a  house,  a  windmill  and  a 
barn. 

Presently  our  craft — for  I  had  the  feeling  that  I  was 
on  a  ship  at  anchor — got  under  way.  On  we  sailed  over 
the  ocean  of  land  for  mile  upon  mile,  each  mile  like  the 
one  before  it  and  the  one  that  followed,  save  only  when 
we  passed  a  little  fleet  of  houses,  like  fishing  boats  at 
sea,  or  crossed  an  inconsequential  wagon  road,  resem 
bling  the  faintly  discernible  wake  of  some  ship,  long 
since  out  of  sight. 

Presently  I  arose  and  joining  my  companion,  went  to 
the  dining  car  for  breakfast.  He  too  had  fallen  under 
the  spell  of  the  prairies.  We  sat  over  our  meal  and 
stared  out  of  the  window  like  a  pair  of  images.  After 
breakfast  it  was  the  same:  we  returned  to  our  car  and 

366 


MONOTONY 

continued  to  gaze  out  at  the  eternal  spaces.  Later  in 
the  morning,  we  became  restless  and  moved  back  to  the 
observation  car  as  men  are  driven  by  boredom  from  one 
room  to  another  on  an  ocean  liner. 

Now  and  then  in  the  distance  we  would  see  cattle  like 
dots  upon  the  plain,  and  once  in  a  long  time  a  horseman 
ambling  along  beneath  the  sky.  The  little  towns  were 
far  apart  and  had,  like  the  surrounding  scenery,  an  air 
of  sadness  and  of  desolation.  The  few  buildings  were 
of  primitive  form,  most  of  them  one-story  structures 
of  wood,  painted  in  raw  color.  But  each  little  settle 
ment  had  its  wooden  church,  and  each  church  its  steeple 
— a  steeple  crude  and  pathetic  in  its  expression  of 
effort  on  the  part  of  a  poor  little  hamlet  to  embellish, 
more  than  any  other  house,  the  house  of  God. 

Even  our  train  seemed  to  have  been  affected  by  this 
country.  The  observation  car  was  deserted  when  we 
reached  it.  Presently,  however,  a  stranger  joined  us 
there,  and  after  a  time  we  fell  into  conversation  with  him 
as  we  sat  and  looked  at  the  receding  track. 

He  proved  to  be  a  Kansan  and  he  told  us  interesting 
things  about  the  State. 

Aside  from  wheat,  which  is  the  great  Kansas  crop, 
corn  is  grown  in  eastern  Kansas,  and  alfalfa  in  various 
parts  of  the  State.  Alfalfa  stays  green  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  year  as  it  goes  through  several  sow 
ings.  Fields  of  alfalfa  resemble  clover  fields,  save  that 
the  former  grows  more  densely  and  is  of  a  richer,  darker 
shade  of  green.  After  alfalfa  has  grown  a  few  years 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  roots  run  far  down  into  the  ground,  often  reaching 
the  "underflow"  of  western  Kansas.  This  underflow  is 
very  characteristic  of  that  part  of  the  State,  where  it  is 
said,  there  are  many  lost  rivers  flowing  beneath  the  sur 
face,  adding  one  more  to  the  list  of  Kansas  phenomena. 
Some  of  these  rivers  flow  only  three  or  four  feet  below 
the  ground,  I  am  told,  while  others  have  reached  a  depth 
of  from  twenty  to  a  hundred  feet.  Alfalfa  roots  will 
go  down  twenty  feet  to  find  the  water.  The  former  bed 
of  the  Republican  River  in  northwestern  Kansas  is,  with 
the  exception  of  a  narrow  strip  in  the  middle  where  the 
river  runs  on  the  surface  in  flood  times,  covered  with 
rich  alfalfa  fields.  Excepting  at  the  time  of  spring  and 
summer  rains,  this  river  is  almost  dry.  The  old  bridges 
over  it  are  no  longer  necessary  except  when  the  rains 
occur,  and  the  river  has  piled  sand  under  them  until  in 
some  places  there  is  not  room  for  a  man  to  stand  be 
neath  bridges  which,  when  built,  were  ten  and  twelve 
feet  above  the  river  bed.  Now,  I  am  told,  they  don't 
build  bridges  any  more,  but  lay  cement  roads  through 
the  sand,  clearing  their  surfaces  after  the  freshets. 

The  Arkansas  River  once  a  mighty  stream,  has  held 
out  with  more  success  than  the  Republican  against  the 
winds  and  drifting  sands,  but  it  is  slowly  and  certainly 
disappearing,  burying  itself  in  the  sand  and  earth  it 
carries  down  at  flood  times — a  work  in  which  it  is  as 
sisted  by  the  strong,  persistent  prairie  winds. 

The  great  wheat  belt  begins  somewhere  about  the  mid 
dle  of  the  State  and  continues  to  the  west.  In  the  spring 

368 


Even  at  sea  the  great  bowl  of  the  sky  had  never  looked  to  me  so  vast 


MONOTONY 

the  wheat  is  light  green  in  color  and  is  flexible  in  the 
wind  so  that  at  that  time  of  year,  the  resemblance  of  the 
prairies  to  the  sea  is  much  more  marked,  and  travelers 
are  often  heard  to  declare  that  the  sight  of  the  green 
billows  makes  them  seasick.  The  season  in  Kansas  is 
about  a  month  earlier  than  in  the  eastern  states ;  in  May 
and  June  the  wheat  turns  yellow,  and  in  the  latter  part 
of  June  it  is  harvested,  leaving  the  prairies  brown  and 
bare  again. 

The  prairie  land  which  is  not  sown  in  wheat  or  alfalfa, 
is  covered  with  prairie  grass — a  long,  wiry  grass,  lighter 
in  shade  than  blue  grass,  which  waves  in  the  everlasting 
wind  and  glistens  like  silver  in  the  sun. 

Rain,  sun,  wind!  The  elements  rule  over  Kansas. 
People's  hearts  are  light  or  heavy  according  to  the 
weather  and  the  prospects  as  to  crops.  My  Kansan 
friend  in  the  observation  car  pointed  out  to  me  the  fact 
that  at  every  railroad  siding  the  railroad  company  had 
paid  its  respects  to  the  Kansas  wind  by  the  installation 
of  a  device  known  as  a  "derailer,"  the  purpose  of  which 
is  to  prevent  cars  from  rolling  or  blowing  from  a  siding 
out  onto  the  main  line.  If  a  car  starts  to  blow  along 
the  siding,  the  derailer  catches  it  before  it  reaches  the 
switch,  and  throws  one  truck  off  the  track. 

"I  suppose  you've  seen  cyclones  out  here,  too?"  I 
asked  the  Kansan. 

"Oh,  yes/'  he  said. 

"Do  the  people  out  in  this  section  of  the  State  all  have 
cyclone  cellars  ?" 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"Oh,  some,"  he  said.  "Some  has  'em.  But  a  great 
many  folks  don't  pay  no  attention  to  cyclones." 

Last  year,  during  a  bad  drought  in  western  Kansas, 
the  wind  performed  a  new  feat,  adding  another  item 
to  Kansas  tradition.  A  high  wind  came  in  February 
and  continued  until  June,  actually  blowing  away  a  large 
portion  of  the  top-soil  of  Thomas  County,  denuding  a 
tract  of  land  fifteen  by  twenty  miles  in  extent.  It  was 
not  a  mere  surface  blow,  either.  In  many  places  two 
feet  of  soil  would  be  carried  away;  roads  were  obliter 
ated,  houses  stood  like  dreary,  deserted  little  forts,  the 
earth  piled  up  breast  high  around  their  wire-enclosed 
dooryards,  and  fences  fell  because  the  supporting  soil 
was  blown  away  from  the  posts.  During  this  time  the 
air  was  full  of  dust,  and  after  it  was  over  the  country 
had  reverted  to  desert — a  desert  not  of  sand,  but  of 
dust. 

This  story  sounded  so  improbable  that  I  looked  up  a 
man  who  had  been  in  Thomas  County  at  the  time.  He 
told  me  about  it  in  detail. 

"I  have  spent  most  of  my  life  in  the  Middle  West," 
he  said,  "but  that  exhibition  was  a  revelation  to  me  of 
the  power  of  the  wind.  A  quarter  of  the  county  was 
stripped  bare.  The  farmers  had,  for  the  most  part, 
moved  out  of  the  district  because  they  could  n't  keep  the 
wheat  in  the  ground  long  enough  to  raise  a  crop.  But 
they  were  camped  around  the  edges,  making  common 
cause  against  the  wind.  You  could  n't  find  a  man  among 
them,  either,  who  would  admit  that  he  was  beaten.  The 

370 


MONOTONY 

kind  of  men  who  are  beaten  by  things  like  that  could  n't 
stand  the  racket  in  western  Kansas.  The  fellows  out 
there  are  the  most  outrageously  optimistic  folks  I  ever 
saw.  They  will  stand  in  the  wind,  eating  the  dirt  that 
blows  into  their  mouths,  and  telling  you  what  good  soil 
it  is — they  don't  mean  good  to  eat,  either — and  if  you 
give  them  a  kind  word  they  are  up  in  arms  in  a  minute 
trying  to  sell  you  some  of  the  cursed  country. 

"The  men  I  talked  to  attributed  the  trouble  to  too 
much  harrowing;  they  said  the  surface  soil  was  scratched 
so  fine  that  it  simply  would  n't  hold.  There  were  wild 
theories,  too,  of  meteorological  disturbances,  but  I  think 
those  were  mostly  evolved  in  the  brains  of  Sunday  edi 
tors. 

"The  farmers  fought  the  thing  systematically  by  a 
process  they  called  'listing':  a  turning  over  of  the  top- 
soil  with  plows.  And  after  a  while  the  listing,  for  some 
reason  known  only  to  the  Almighty  and  the  Department 
of  Agriculture,  actually  did  stop  the  trouble  and  the  land 
stayed  put  again.  Then  the  farmers  planted  Kaffir  corn 
because  it  grows  easily,  and  because  they  needed  a  net 
work  of  roots  to  hold  down  the  soil.  Most  of  that  land 
was  reclaimed  by  the  end  of  last  summer." 

The  little  towns  along  the  line  are  almost  all  alike. 
Each  has  a  watering  tank  for  locomotives,  a  grain  ele 
vator,  and  a  cattle  pen,  beside  the  track.  Each  has  a 
station  made  of  wide  vertical  boards,  their  seams  cov 
ered  by  wooden  strips,  and  the  whole  painted  ochre. 
Then  there  is  usually  a  wide,  sandy  main  street  with  a 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

few  brick  buildings  and  more  wooden  ones,  while  on  the 
outskirts  of  the  town  are  shanties,  covered  with  tar 
paper,  and  beyond  them  the  eternal  prairie.  You  can 
see  no  more  reason  why  a  town  should  be  at  that  point 
on  the  prairie  than  at  any  other  point.  And  it  is  a  fact, 
I  believe,  that,  in  many  instances,  the  railroad  companies 
have  simply  created  towns,  arbitrarily,  at  even  distances. 
The  only  town  I  recall  that  looked  in  any  way  different 
from  every  other  town  out  there,  was  Wallace,  where 
a  storekeeper  has  made  a  lot  of  curious  figures,  in  twisted 
wire,  and  placed  them  on  the  roof  of  his  store,  whence 
they  project  into  the  air  for  a  distance  of  twenty  or  thirty 
feet. 

I  think,  though  I  am  not  sure,  that  it  was  before  we 
crossed  the  Colorado  line  when  we  saw  our  first  'dobe 
house,  our  first  sage  brush,  and  our  first  tumbleweed. 
Mark  Twain  has  described  sagebrush  as  looking  like 
"a  gnarled  and  venerable  live  oak  tree  reduced  to  a  little 
shrub  two  feet  high,  with  its  rough  bark,  its  foliage,  its 
twisted  boughs,  all  complete."  In  "Roughing  It"  he 
writes  two  whole  pages  about  sagebrush,  telling  how  it 
gives  a  gray-green  tint  to  the  desert  country,  how  hardy 
it  is,  and  how  it  is  used  for  making  camp  fires  on  the 
plains  and  he  winds  up  with  this  characteristic  para 
graph  : 

"Sagebrush  is  very  fair  fuel,  but  as  a  vegetable  it  is 
a  distinguished  failure.  Nothing  can  abide  the  taste 
of  it  but  the  jackass  and  his  illegitimate  child,  the  mule. 
But  their  testimony  to  its  nutritiousness  is  worth  noth- 


MONOTONY 

ing,  for  they  will  eat  pine  knots,  or  anthracite  coal,  or 
brass  filings,  or  lead  pipe,  or  old  bottles,  or  anything 
that  comes  handy,  and  then  go  off  looking  as  grateful  as 
if  they  had  had  oysters  for  dinner." 

Though  Mark  Twain  tells  about  coyotes  and  prairie 
dogs — animals  which  I  looked  for,  but  regret  to  say  I 
did  not  see — he  ignores  the  tumbleweed,  the  most  curi 
ous  thing,  animal,  vegetable,  or  mineral,  that  crossed 
my  vision  as  I  crossed  the  plains.  I  cannot  understand 
why  Mark  Twain  did  not  mention  this  weed,  because  he 
must  have  seen  it,  and  it  must  have  delighted  him,  with 
its  comical  gyrations. 

Tumbleweed  is  a  bushy  plant  which  grows  to  a  height 
of  perhaps  three  feet,  and  has  a  mass  of  little  twigs  and 
branches  which  make  its  shape  almost  perfectly  round. 
Fortunately  for  the  amusement  of  mankind,  it  has  a 
weak  stalk,  so  that,  when  the  plant  dries,  the  wind  breaks 
it  off  at  the  bottom,  and  then  proceeds  to  roll  it,  over  and 
over,  across  the  land.  I  well  remember  the  first  tumble- 
weed  we  saw. 

"What  on  earth  is  that  thing?"  cried  my  companion, 
suddenly,  pointing  out  through  the  car  window.  I 
looked.  Some  distance  away  a  strange,  buff-colored 
shape  was  making  a  swift,  uncanny  progress  toward  the 
east.  It  wasn't  crawling;  it  wasn't  running;  but  it 
was  traveling  fast,  with  a  rolling,  tossing,  careening  mo 
tion,  like  a  barrel  half  full  of  whisky,  rushing  down  hill. 
Now  it  tilted  one  way,  now  another ;  now  it  shot  swiftly 
into  some  slight  depression  in  the  plain,  but  only  to  come 

373 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

bounding  lightly  out  again,  with  an  air  indescribably 
gay,  abandoned  and  inane. 

Soon  we  saw  another  and  another ;  they  became  more 
and  more  common  as  we  went  along  until  presently  they 
were  rushing  everywhere,  careering  in  their  maudlin 
course  across  the  prairie,  and  piled  high  against  the 
fences  along  the  railroad's  right  of  way,  like  great  con 
cealing  snowdrifts. 

We  fell  in  love  with  tumbleweed  and  never  while  it 
was  in  sight  lost  interest  in  its  idiotic  evolutions.  Ex 
cepting  only  tobacco,  it  is  the  greatest  weed  that  grows, 
and  it  has  the  advantage  over  tobacco  that  it  does  no 
man  any  harm,  but  serves  only  to  excite  his  risibilities. 
It  is  the  clown  of  vegetation,  and  it  has  the  air,  as  it 
rolls  along,  of  being  conscious  of  its  comicality,  like  the 
smart  caniche,  in  the  dog  show,  who  goes  and  overturns 
the  basket  behind  the  trainer's  back ;  or  the  circus  clown 
who  runs  about  with  a  rolling  gait,  tripping,  turning 
double  and  triple  somersaults,  rising,  running  on,  trip 
ping,  falling,  and  turning  over  and  over  again.  Who 
shall  say  that  tumbleweed  is  useless,  since  it  contributes 
a  rare  note  of  drollery  to  the  tragic  desolation  of  the 
western  plains? 

As  I  have  said,  I  am  not  certain  that  we  saw  the  tum 
bleweed  before  we  crossed  the  line  from  Kansas  into 
Colorado,  but  there  is  one  episode  that  I  remember, 
and  which  I  am  certain  occurred  before  we  reached  the 
boundary,  for  I  recall  the  name  of  the  town  at  which 
it  happened. 

374 


MONOTONY 

It  was  a  sad-looking  little  town,  like  all  the  rest — just 
a  main  street  and  a  few  stores  and  houses  set  down  in 
the  midst  of  the  illimitable  waste.  Our  train  stopped 
there. 

I  saw  a  man  across  the  aisle  look  out  of  the  window, 
scowl,  rise  from  his  seat,  throw  up  his  arms,  and  ex 
claim,  addressing  no  one  in  particular:  "God!  How 
can  they  stand  living  out  here  ?  I  'd  rather  be  dead !" 

My  companion  and  I  had  been  speaking  of  the  same 
thing,  wondering  how  people  could  endure  their  lives  in 
such  a  place. 

"Come  on,"  he  said,  rising.  "This  is  the  last  stop  be 
fore  we  get  to  Colorado.  Let 's  get  out  and  walk." 

I  followed  him  from  the  car  and  to  the  station  plat 
form. 

Looking  away  from  the  station,  we  gazed  upon  a  fore 
ground  the  principal  scenic  grandeur  of  which  was  sup 
plied  by  a  hitching  post.  Beyond  lay  the  inevitable 
main  street  and  dismal  buildings.  One  of  them,  as  I 
recall  it,  was  painted  sky-blue,  and  bore  the  simple,  un 
ostentatious  word,  "Hotel." 

My  companion  gazed  upon  the  scene  for  a  time.  He 
looked  melancholy.  Finally,  without  turning  his  head, 
he  spoke. 

"How  would  you  like  to  get  off  and  spend  a  week 
here,  some  day?"  he  asked  me. 

"You  mean  get  off  some  day  and  spend  a  week,"  I 
corrected. 

"No,  I  mean  get  off  and  spend  a  week  some  day/' 

375 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

I  was  still  cogitating  over  that  when  the  train  started. 
We  scrambled  aboard  and,  resuming  our  seats  in  the 
observation  car,  looked  back  at  the  receding  station. 
There,  in  strong  black  letters  on  a  white  sign,  we  saw, 
for  the  first  time,  the  name  of  the  town : 

Monotony ! 


THE  MOUNTAINS  AND  THE  COAST 


CHAPTER  XXX 
UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

WHAT  a  curious  thing  it  is,  that  mental  proc 
ess  by  which  a  first  impression  of  a  city  is 
summed  up.  A  railway  station,  a  taxicab, 
swift  glimpses  through  a  dirty  window  of  streets,  build 
ings,  people,  blurred  together,  incoherently,  like  moving 
pictures  out  of  focus;  then  a  quick  unconscious  adding 
of  infinitesimal  details  and  the  total:  "I  like  this  city," 
or:  "I  do  not  like  it." 

It  was  late  afternoon  when  the  train  upon  which  we 
had  come  from  eastern  Kansas  stopped  at  the  Denver 
station — a  substantial  if  not  distinguished  structure, 
neither  new  nor  very  old,  but  of  that  architectural  period 
in  which  it  was  considered  that  a  roof  was  hardly  more 
essential  to  a  station  than  a  tower. 

Passing  through  the  building  and  emerging  upon  the 
taxi  stand,  we  found  ourselves  confronted  by  an  elabo 
rate  triple  gateway  of  bronze,  somewhat  reminiscent 
of  certain  city  gates  of  Paris,  at  which  the  octroi  waits 
with  the  inhospitable  purpose  of  collecting  taxes.  How 
ever,  Denver  has  no  octroi,  nor  is  the  Denver  gate  a 
barrier.  Indeed,  it  is  not  even  a  gate,  having  no  doors, 
but  is  intended  merely  as  a  sort  of  formal  portal  to  the 
city — a  city  proud  of  its  climate,  of  the  mountain 

379 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

scenery,  and  of  its  reputation  for  thoroughgoing  hospi 
tality.  Over  the  large  central  arch  of  this  bronze  mon 
strosity  the  beribboned  delegate  (arriving  to  attend  one 
of  the  many  conventions  always  being  held  in  Denver) 
may  read,  in  large  letters,  the  word  "Welcome";  and 
when,  later,  departing,  he  approaches  the  arch  from  the 
city  gate,  he  finds  Denver  giving  him  godspeed  with  the 
word  "Mizpah." 

Passing  beneath  the  central  arch,  our  taxi  swept  along 
a  wide,  straight  street,  paved  with  impeccably  smooth 
asphalt,  and  walled  in  with  buildings  tall  enough  and 
solid  enough  to  do  credit  to  the  business  and  shopping 
district  of  any  large  American  city. 

All  this  surprised  me.  Perhaps  because  of  the  unfa^ 
vorable  first  impression  I  had  received  in  Kansas  City, 
I  had  expected  Denver,  being  farther  west,  to  have  a  less 
finished  look.  Furthermore,  I  had  been  reading  Richard 
Harding  Davis's  book,  "The  West  Through  a  Car  Win 
dow,"  which,  though  it  told  me  that  Denver  is  "a  smaller 
New  York  in  an  encircling  range  of  white-capped  moun 
tains,"  added  that  Denever  has  "the  worst  streets  in 
the  country/'  Denver  is  still  by  way  of  being  a  minia 
ture  New  York,  with  its  considerable  number  of  eastern 
families,  and  its  little  replica  of  Broadway  cafe  life, 
as  well;  but  the  Denver  streets  are  no  longer  ill  paved. 
Upon  the  contrary,  they  are  among  the  best  paved  streets 
possessed  by  any  city  I  have  visited.  That  caused  me 
to  look  at  the  copyright  notice  in  Mr.  Davis's  book, 
whereupon  I  discovered,  to  my  surprise,  that  twenty- 

380 


if 

§ s 
^g 

*<  o 

-     re 


?r  - 
(£  5- 


il 


is. 


^  o 
«-w 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

two  years  (and  Heaven  only  knows  how  many  steam 
rollers)  had  passed  over  Denver  since  the  book  was 
written.  Yet,  barring  such  improvements,  the  picture  is 
quite  accurate  to-day. 

Another  feeling  of  my  first  ten  minutes  in  Denver 
was  one  of  wonder  at  the  city's  flatness.  That  part  of 
it  through  which  we  passed  on  the  way  to  the  Brown 
Palace  Hotel  was  as  flat  as  Chicago,  whereas  I  had 
always  thought  of  Denver  as  being  in  the  mountains. 
However,  if  flat,  the  streets  looked  attractive,  and  I 
arrived  at  the  proudly  named  caravansary  with  the 
feeling  that  Denver  was  a  fine  young  city. 

Meeting  cities,  one  after  another,  as  I  met  them  on 
this  journey,  is  like  being  introduced,  at  a  reception, 
to  a  line  of  strangers.  A  glance,  a  handshake,  a  word 
or  two,  and  you  have  formed  an  impression  of  an  in 
dividuality.  But  there  is  this  difference :  the  individual 
at  the  reception  is  "fixed  up"  for  the  occasion,  whereas 
the  city  has  but  one  exterior  to  show  to  every  one. 

That  the  exterior  shown  by  Denver  is  pleasing  has 
been,  until  recently,  a  matter  more  or  less  of  accident. 
The  city  was  laid  out  by  pioneers  and  mining  men,  who 
showed  their  love  of  liberality  in  making  the  streets 
wide.  There  is  nothing  close  about  Denver.  She  has 
the  open-handed,  easy  affluence  of  a  mining  city.  She 
spends  money  freely  on  good  pavements  and  good  build 
ings.  Thus,  without  any  brilliant  comprehensive  plan 
she  has  yet  grown  from  a  rough  mining  camp  into  a  de 
lightful  city,  all  in  the  space  of  fifty  years. 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

A  little  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  Captain  Zebu- 
Ion  Pike  crossed  the  plains  and  visited  the  territory 
which  is  now  Colorado,  though  it  was  then  a  part  of 
the  vast  country  of  Louisiana.  Long,  Fremont,  Kit 
Carson,  and  the  other  early  pioneers  followed,  but  it 
was  not  until  1858  that  gold  was  found  on  the  banks 
of  Cherry  Creek,  above  its  juncture  with  the  South 
Platte  River,  causing  a  camp  to  be  located  on  the  pres 
ent  site  of  Denver.  The  first  camp  was  on  the  west 
side  of  Cherry  Creek  and  was  named  Auraria,  after  a 
town  in  Georgia.  On  the  east  side  there  developed  an 
other  camp,  St.  Charles  by  name,  and  these  two  camps 
remained,  for  some  time,  independent  of  each  other. 
The  discovery  of  gold  in  California  brought  a  new  in 
flux  of  men  to  Colorado — though  the  part  of  Colorado 
in  which  Denver  stands  was  then  in  the  territory  of 
Kansas,  which  extended  to  the  Rockies.  Many  of  the 
pioneers  were  men  from  eastern  Kansas,  and  hence  it 
happened  that  when  the  mining  camps  of  Auraria  and 
St.  Charles  were  combined  into  one  town,  the  town  was 
named  for  General  James  W.  Denver,  then  Governor  of 
Kansas. 

Kansas  City  and  Denver  are  about  of  an  age  and  are 
comparable  in  many  ways.  The  former  still  remains  a 
kind  of  capital  to  which  naturally  gravitate  men  who 
have  made  fortunes  in  southwestern  oil  and  cattle,  while 
the  latter  is  a  mining  capital.  Of  her  "hundred  million 
aires/'  most  have  been  enriched  by  mines,  and  the  story 
of  her  sudden  fortunes  and  of  her  famous  "characters" 

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makes  a  long  and  racy  chapter  in  American  history, 
running  the  gamut  from  tragedy  to  farce.  And,  like 
Kansas  City,  Denver  is  particularly  American.  Prac 
tically  all  her  millionaires,  past  and  present,  came  of  na 
tive  stock,  and  almost  all  her  wealth  has  been  taken  from 
ground  in  the  State  of  Colorado. 

J.  M.  Oskison,  in  his  "Unconventional  Portrait/'  pub 
lished  in  "Collier's"  a  year  or  so  ago,  told  a  great  deal 
about  Denver  in  a  few  words: 

Last  October  a  frock-coated  clergyman  of  the  Episcopal 
Church  stood  up  in  one  of  the  luxurious  parlors  of  Denver's 
newest  hotel  and  said :  "  I  am  an  Arapahoe  Indian ;  when  I  was 
a  little  boy  my  people  used  to  hunt  buffalo  all  over  this  country ; 
we  made  our  camps  right  on  this  place  where  Denver  is  now." 
There  is  not  very  much  gray  in  that  man's  hair. 

In  the  summer  of  1867,  when  Vice-President  Colfax  came  to 
Denver  from  Cheyenne,  after  a  stage  ride  of  twenty-two  hours, 
he  found  it  a  hopeful  city  of  5,000.  Denver  had  just  learned  that 
Cherry  Creek  sometimes  carried  a  great  deal  of  water  down  to 
the  Platte  River,  and  that  it  was  n't  wise  to  build  in  its  bed. 

Irrigation  has  made  a  garden  of  the  city  and  lands  about. 
There  are  240,000  people  who  make  Denver  their  home  to-day. 
The  city  under  the  shadow  of  the  mountains  is  spread  over  an 
area  of  sixty  square  miles;  a  plat  of  redeemed  desert  with  an 
assessed  valuation  of  $135,000,000. 

In  1870,  three  years  after  the  visit  of  Colfax,  Den 
ver  got  its  first  railroad:  a  spur  line  from  Cheyenne; 
in  the  8o's  it  got  street  cars;  to-day  it  has  the  look  of 
a  city  that  is  made — and  well  made.  But,  as  I  have 
said  before,  that  has,  hitherto,  been  largely  a  matter 
of  good  fortune.  Denver's  youth  has  saved  her  from 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  municipal  disease  which  threatens  such  older  cities 
as  St.  Louis  and  St.  Paul:  hardening  of  the  arteries  of 
traffic.  Also,  nature  has  given  her  what  may  be  termed 
a  good  "municipal  complexion/'  wherein  she  has  been 
more  fortunate  than  Kansas  City,  whose  warts  and  wens 
have  necessitated  expensive  operations  by  the  city 
"beauty  doctor." 

Now,  a  city  with  the  natural  charm  of  Denver  is,  like 
a  woman  similarly  endowed,  in  danger  of  becoming 
oversure.  Either  is  likely  to  lie  back  and  rest  upon  Na 
ture's  bounty.  Yet,  to  Denver's  eternal  credit  be  it  said, 
she  has  not  fallen  into  the  ways  of  indolent  self-satis 
faction.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no  American  city  which  has 
done,  and  is  doing,  more  for  herself.  Consider  these 
few  random  items  taken  from  the  credit  side  of  her 
balance:  She  is  one  of  the  best  lighted  cities  in  the 
land.  She  has  the  commission  form  of  government. 
(Also,  as  you  will  remember,  she  has  woman  suffrage, 
Colorado  having  been  the  first  State  to  accept  it. )  Her 
Children's  Court,  presided  over  by  Judge  Ben  B.  Lind- 
sey,  is  famous.  She  has  no  bread  line,  and,  as  for  crime, 
when  I  asked  Police  Inspector  Leonard  De  Lue  about 
it,  he  shook  his  head  and  said:  "No;  business  is  light, 
The  fact  is  we  ain't  got  no  crime  out  here."  Denver 
owns  her  own  Auditorium,  where  free  concerts  are  given 
by  the  city.  Also,  in  one  of  her  parks,  she  has  a  city 
race  track,  where  sport  is  the  only  consideration,  betting, 
even  between  horse  owners,  having  been  successfully 
eliminated.  Furthermore,  Denver  has  been  one  of  the 

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first  American  cities  to  begin  work  on  a  "civic  center." 
Several  blocks  before  the  State  Capitol  have  been  cleared 
of  buildings,  and  a  plaza  is  being  laid  out  there  which 
will  presently  be  a  Tuileries  Garden,  in  miniature,  sur 
rounded  by  fine  public  buildings,  forming  a  suitable  cen 
tral  feature  for  the  admirable  system  of  parks  and 
boulevards  which  already  exists. 

Curiously  enough,  however,  by  far  the  smallest  part 
of  Denver's  parks  are  within  the  confines  of  the  city. 
About  five  years  ago  Mr.  John  Brisben  Walker  pro 
posed  that  mountain  parks  be  created.  Denver  seized 
upon  the  idea  with  characteristic  energy,  with  the  re 
sult  that  she  now  has  mountain  parks  covering  forty 
square  miles  in  neighboring  counties.  These  parks  have 
an  area  almost  as  great  as  that  of  the  whole  city,  and 
are  connected  with  the  Denver  boulevards  by  fine  roads, 
so  that  some  of  the  most  spectacular  motor  trips  in  the 
country  are  within  easy  range  of  the  "Queen  City  of  the 
Plains/' 

But  though  the  mountains  give  Denver  her  individu 
ality,  and  though  she  has  made  the  most  of  them,  they 
have  not  proved  an  unmixed  blessing.  The  riches  which 
she  has  extracted  from  them,  and  the  splendid  setting 
that  they  give  her,  is  the  silver  lining  to  her  commercial 
cloud.  The  mountains  directly  west  of  Denver  form 
a  barrier  which  has  forced  the  main  lines  of  trancon- 
tinental  travel  to  the  north  and  south,  leaving  Denver 
in  a  backwater. 

To  overcome  this  handicap  the  late  David  Moffat, 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

one  of  Denver's  early  millionaires,  started  in  to  build 
the  Denver  &  Salt  Lake  Railroad,  better  known  as  the 
Moffat  Road.  This  railway  strikes  almost  due  west 
from  Denver  and  crosses  the  continental  divide  at  an 
altitude  of  over  two  miles.  While  it  is  one  of  the  most 
astonishing  pieces  of  railroad  in  the  world,  its  wind 
ings  and  severe  grades  have  made  operation  difficult 
and  expensive,  and  the  road  has  been  built  only  as  far 
as  Craig,  Colo.,  less  than  halfway  to  Salt  Lake  City. 
The  great  difficulty  has  always  been  the  crossing  of  the 
divide.  The  city  of  Denver  has  now  come  forward 
with  the  Moffat  tunnel  project,  and  has  extended  her 
credit  to  the  extent  of  three  million  dollars,  for  the  pur 
pose  of  helping  the  railroad  company  to  build  the  tunnel. 
It  will  be  more  than  six  miles  long,  and  will  penetrate 
the  Continental  Divide  at  a  point  almost  half  a  mile 
below  that  now  reached  by  the  road,  saving  twenty-four 
miles  in  distance  and  over  two  per  cent,  in  grade.  The 
tunnel  is  now  under  construction,  and  will,  when  com 
pleted,  be  the  longest  railroad  tunnel  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere.  The  railroad  company  stands  one-third 
of  the  cost,  while  the  city  of  Denver  undertakes  two- 
thirds.  When  completed,  this  route  will  be  the  shortest 
between  Denver  and  Salt  Lake  by  many  miles. 

Nor  is  Denver  giving  her  entire  attention  to  her  rail 
way  line.  The  good-roads  movement  is  strong  through 
out  the  State  of  Colorado.  Last  year  two  million  dol 
lars  was  expended  under  the  direction  of  the  State  High 
way  Commission — a  very  large  sum  when  it  is  consid- 

386 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

ered  that  the  total  population  of  the  State  is  not  a  great 
deal  larger  than  that  of  the  city  of  St.  Louis. 

The  construction  of  roads  in  Colorado  is  carried  on 
under  a  most  advanced  system.  Of  a  thousand  con 
victs  assigned  to  the  State  Penitentiary  at  Canon  City, 
four  hundred  are  employed  upon  road  work.  In  travel 
ing  through  the  State  I  came  upon  several  parties  of 
these  men,  and  had  I  not  been  informed  of  the  fact,  I 
should  never  have  known  that  they  were  convicts.  I 
met  them  in  the  mountains,  where  they  live  in  camps 
many  miles  distant  from  the  penitentiary.  They  seemed 
always  to  be  working  with  a  will,  but  as  we  passed,  they 
would  look  up  and  smile  and  wave  their  hands  to  us. 
They  appeared  healthy,  happy,  and — respectable.  They 
do  not  wear  stripes,  and  their  guards  are  unarmed,  be 
ing  selected,  rather,  as  foremen  with  a  knowledge  of 
road  building.  When  one  considers  the  ghastly  mine 
wars  which  have,  at  intervals,  disgraced  the  State,  it 
is  comforting  to  reflect  upon  Colorado's  enlightened 
methods  of  handling  her  prisons  and  her  prisoners. 

Denver,  in  her  general  architecture,  is  more  attrac 
tive  than  certain  important  cities  to  the  eastward  of 
her.  Her  houses  are,  for  the  most  part,  built  solidly 
of  brick  and  stone,  and  more  taste  has  been  displayed  in 
them,  upon  the  whole,  than  has  been  shown  in  either 
St.  Louis  or  Kansas  City.  Like  Kansas  City,  Denver 
has  many  long,  tree-bordered  streets  lined  with  modest 
homes  which  look  new  and  which  are  substantially  built, 
but  there  is  less  monotony  of  design  in  Denver. 

387 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

As  in  Kansas  City,  the  wonder  of  Denver  is  that  it 
has  all  happened  in  such  a  short  time.  This  was  brought 
home  to  me  when,  dining  in  a  delightful  house  one  even 
ing,  I  was  informed  by  my  hostess  that  the  land  on 
which  is  her  home  was  "homesteaded,"  in  '64  or  '65, 
by  her  father;  that  is  to  say,  he  had  taken  it  over, 
gratis,  from  the  Government.  That  modest  corner 
lot  is  now  worth  between  fifteen  and  twenty  thousand 
dollars. 

Though  Denver  has  no  art  gallery,  she  hopes  to  have 
one  in  connection  with  her  new  "civic  center."  In  the 
meantime,  some  paintings  are  shown  in  the  Public 
Library  and  in  the  Colorado  Museum  of  Natural  His 
tory — a  building  which  also  shelters  a  collection  of 
stuffed  animals  (somewhat  better,  on  the  whole,  than 
the  paintings)  and  of  minerals  found  in  the  State. 

A  symphony  hall  is  planned  along  with  the  new  art 
gallery,  for  Denver  has  a  real  interest  in  music.  In 
deed,  I  found  that  true  of  many  cities  in  the  Middle 
West  and  West.  In  Kansas  City,  for  instance,  impor 
tant  concerts  are  patronized  not  only  by  residents  of  the 
place,  but  by  quantities  of  people  who  come  in  from 
other  cities  and  towns  within  a  radius  of  thirty  or  forty 
miles. 

Denver  has  her  own  symphony  orchestra,  one  which 
compares  favorably  with  many  other  large  orchestras 
in  various  parts  of  the  country.  The  Denver  organiza 
tion  is  led  by  Horace  Tureman,  a  very  capable  conduc 
tor,  and  its  seventy  musicians  have  been  gathered  from 

388 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

theater  and  cafe  orchestras  throughout  the  city.  Six 
or  eight  programs  of  the  highest  character  are  given 
each  season,  and  in  order  that  all  music  lovers  may  be 
enabled  to  attend  the  concerts,  seats  are  sold  as  low  as 
ten  cents  each. 

"If  some  of  the  big  concert  singers  who  come  out 
here  could  hear  one  of  our  symphony  programs,"  one 
Denver  woman  said  to  me,  "I  think  they  might  revise 
their  opinion  of  us.  A  great  many  of  them  must  think 
us  less  advanced,  musically,  than  we  are,  for  they  insist 
on  singing  'The  Suwanee  River'  and  'Home,  Sweet 
Home' — which  we  always  resent/5 

The  one  conspicuous  example  of  sculpture  which  I 
saw  in  Denver — the  Pioneer's  Fountain,  by  Macmonnies 
— is  not  entirely  Denver's  fault.  When  a  city  gives  an 
order  to  a  sculptor  of  Macmonnies's  standing,  she  shows 
that  she  means  to  do  the  best  she  can.  It  is  then  up  to 
the  sculptor. 

The  Pioneer's  Fountain,  which  is  intended  to  com 
memorate  the  early  settlers,  could  hardly  be  less  suit 
able.  It  is  large  and  exceedingly  ornate.  Surmount 
ing  the  top  of  it  is  a  rococo  cowboy  upon  a  pony  of 
the  same  extraction.  The  pony  is  not  a  cow-pony,  and 
the  cowboy  is  not  a  cowboy,  but  a  theatrical  figure: 
something  which  might  have  been  modeled  by  a  French 
man  whose  acquaintance  with  this  country  had  been 
limited  to  the  reading  of  bad  translations  of  Fenimore 
Cooper  and  Bret  Harte.  At  the  base  of  the  fountain 
are  figures  which,  I  was  informed,  represent  pioneers. 

389 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

If  western  pioneers  had  been  like  these,  there  never 
would  have  been  a  West.  They  are  soft  creatures,  al 
most  voluptuous,  who  would  have  wept  in  face  of  hos 
tile  Indians.  The  whole  fountain  seems  like  something . 
intended  for  a  mantel  ornament  in  Dresden  china,  but 
which,  through  some  confusion,  had  gotten  itself  en 
larged  and  cast  in  bronze. 

Society  in  Denver  has  several  odd  features.  For  one 
thing,  it  is  the  habit  of  fashionables,  and  those  who 
wish  to  gaze  upon  them,  to  attend  the  theaters  on  cer 
tain  nights,  which  are  known  as  "society  night."  Thus, 
the  Broadway  Theater  has  "society  night"  on  Mondays, 
the  Denham  on  Wednesdays,  and  the  Orpheum  on  Fri 
days. 

"Society,"  of  course,  means  different  things  to  dif 
ferent  persons.  In  Denver  the  word,  used  in  its  most 
restricted,  most  elegant,  most  recherche,  and  most  ex 
clusive  sense,  means  that  group  of  persons  who  are 
celebrated  in  the  society  columns  of  the  Denver  news 
papers,  as  "The  Sacred  Thirty-six." 

If  it  is  possible  for  newspapers  anywhere  to  outdo 
in  idiocy  those  of  New  York  in  the  handling  of  "so 
ciety  news,"  I  should  say  that  the  Denver  newspapers 
accomplished  it.  Having  less  to  work  with,  they  have 
to  make  more  noise  in  proportion.  Thus  the  arrival 
in  Denver,  at  about  the  time  I  was  there,  of  Lord  and 
Lady  Decies  caused  an  amount  of  agitation  the  like  of 
which  I  have  never  witnessed  anywhere.  The  Denver 
papers  were  absolutely  plastered  over  with  the  pictures 

390 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

and  doings  and  sayings  of  this  English  gentleman  and 
his  American  wife,  and  the  matter  published  with  re 
gard  to  them  revealed  a  delight  in  their  presence  which 
was  childlike  and  engaging. 

I  have  a  copy  of  one  Denver  paper,  containing  an 
interview  with  Lord  and  Lady  Decies,  in  which  the  re 
porter  mentions  having  been  greeted  "like  I  was  a  regu 
lar  caller,"  adding:  "The  more  I  looked  the  grander 
everything  got."  The  same  reporter  referred  to  Decies 
as  "the  Lord,"  which  must  have  struck  him  as  more 
flattering  than  when,  later,  he  was  mentioned  as  "His 
Nibs."  The  interviewer,  however,  finally  approved  the 
visitors,  stating  definitely  that  "they  are  Regular  Folks 
and  they  don't  four-flush  about  anything." 

When  it  comes  to  publicity  there  is  one  man  in  Denver 
who  gets  more  of  it  than  all  the  "Sacred  Thirty-six" 
put  together,  adepts  though  they  seem  to  be. 

It  is  impossible  to  consider  Denver  without  consider 
ing  Judge  B.  Lindsey — although  I  may  say  in  passing 
that  I  was  urged  to  perform  the  impossible  in  this  re 
spect. 

Opinion  with  regard  to  Judge  Lindsey  is  divided  in 
Denver.  It  is  passionately  divided.  I  talked  not  only 
with  the  Judge  himself,  but  with  a  great  many  citizens 
of  various  classes,  and  while  I  encountered  no  one  who 
did  not  believe  in  the  celebrated  Juvenile  Court  con 
ducted  by  him,  I  found  many  who  disapproved  more 
or  less  violently  of  certain  of  his  political  activities,  his 
speech-making  tours,  and,  most  of  all,  of  his  writings 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

in  the  magazines  which,  it  was  contended,  had  given 
Denver  a  black  eye. 

Denver  is  clearly  sensitive  about  her  reputation.  As 
a  passing  observer,  I  am  not  surprised.  With  Denver, 
I  believe  that  she  has  had  to  take  more  than  a  fair  share 
of  criticism.  She  thoroughly  is  sick  of  it,  and  one  way 
in  which  she  shows  that  she  is  sick  of  it  is  by  a  billboard 
campaign. 

"Denver  has  no  bread  line,"  I  read  on  the  billboards. 
"Stop  knocking.  Boost  for  more  business  and  a  bigger 
city." 

The  charge  that  the  Judge  had  injured  Denver  by 
"knocking"  it  in  his  book  was  used  against  him  freely 
in  the  1912  and  1914  campaign,  but  he  was  elected  by  a 
majority  of  more  than  two  to  one.  He  is  always 
elected.  He  has  run  for  his  judgeship  ten  times  in  the 
past  twelve  years — this  owing  to  certain  disputes  as  to 
whether  the  judgeship  of  the  Juvenile  Court  is  a  city, 
county,  or  state  office.  But  whatever  kind  of  office  it 
is,  he  holds  it  firmly,  having  been  elected  by  all  three. 

At  present  the  Judge  is  engaged  in  trying  to  complete 
a  code  of  laws  for  the  protection  of  women  and  children, 
which  he  hopes  will  be  a  model  for  all  other  States. 
This  code  will  cover  labor,  juvenile  delinquency,  and 
dependency,  juvenile  courts,  mothers'  compensation,  so 
cial  insurance  (the  Judge's  term  for  a  measure  guaran 
teeing  every  woman  the  support  of  her  child,  whether 
she  be  married  or  unmarried),  probation,  and  other  mat 
ters  having  to  do  with  social  and  industrial  justice  to- 

392 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

ward  mother  and  child.  It  is  the  Judge's  general  pur 
pose  to  humanize  tlie  law,  to  cause  temptations  and 
frailties  to  be  considered  by  the  law,  and  to  make  society 
responsible  for  its  part  in  crime. 

The  Judge  is  also  trying  to  get  himself  appointed  a 
Commissioner  of  Child  Welfare  for  the  State,  without 
salary  or  other  expense. 

Of  all  these  activities  Denver,  so  far  as  I  could  learn, 
seemed  generally  to  approve.  A  number  of  women, 
two  corporation  presidents,  a  hotel  waiter,  and  a  clerk 
in  an  express  office,  among  others,  told  me  they  ap 
proved  of  Lindsey's  work  for  women  and  children.  A 
barber  in  the  hotel  said  that  he  "guessed  the  Judge  was 
all  right,"  but  added  that  there  had  been  "too  much 
hollering  about  reform/'  considering  that  Denver  was 
a  city  depending  for  a  good  deal  of  her  prosperity  upon 
tourists. 

In  the  more  intelligent  circles  the  great  objections  to 
the  Judge  seemed  to  rest  upon  the  florid  methods  he  has 
used  to  promote  his  causes,  upon  the  diversity  of  his  in 
terests,  and  upon  the  allegation  that  he  had  become  a 
demagogue. 

One  gentleman  described  him  to  me  as  "the  most 
hated  citizen  of  Colorado  in  Colorado,  and  the  most  ad 
mired  citizen  of  Colorado  everywhere  outside  the  State." 

"Lindsey  has  done  the  State  harm,  perhaps,"  said 
this  gentleman,  "by  what  he  has  said  about  it,  but  he 
has  done  us  a  lot  of  good  with  his  reforms.  The  great 
trouble  is  that  he  has  too  many  irons  in  the  fire.  His 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

court  is  a  splendid  thing;  we -all  admit  that.  And  he 
is  peculiarly  suited  to  his  work.  But  he  has  gotten  into 
all  kinds  of  movements  and  has  been  so  widely  adver 
tised  that  he  has  become  a  monumental  egotist.  He  be 
lieves  in  his  various  causes,  but,  more  than  anything 
else,  he  believes  in  himself,  in  getting  himself  before  the 
public  and  keeping  himself  there.  He  has  posed  as  a 
little  god,  and,  as  Shaw  says:  'If  you  pose  as  a  little 
god,  you  must  pose  for  better  or  for  worse/  ' 

The  Judge  is  a  very  small,  slight  man,  with  a  high, 
bulging  white  forehead,  thin  hair,  a  sharp,  aquiline  nose, 
a  large,  rolling  black  mustache  and  very  fine  eyes,  brown 
almost  to  blackness.  The  most  striking  things  about 
him  are  the  eyes,  the  forehead,  and  the  waxy  whiteness 
of  his  skin.  He  looks  thin-skinned,  but  he  seems  to  have 
proved  that,  in  the  metaphorical  sense  at  least,  he  is 
not. 

He  speaks  of  his  causes  quietly  but  very  earnestly, 
and  you  feel,  as  you  listen  to  him,  that  he  hardly  ever 
thinks  of  other  things.  There  is  something  strange  and 
very  individual  about  him. 

"The  story  of  one  American  city,"  he  said  to  me,  "is 
the  story  of  every  American  city.  Denver  is  no  worse 
than  the  rest.  Indeed,  I  believe  it  is  a  cleaner  and  bet 
ter  city  than  most,  and  I  have  been  in  every  city  in  every 
State  in  this  Union." 

It  has  been  said  that  "the  worst  thing  about  reform 
is  the  reformer."  You  can  say  the  same  thing  about 
authorship  and  authors,  or  about  plumbing  and  plum- 

394 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

bers.  It  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  human 
element  is  the  weak  element.  I  have  met  a  number  of 
reformers  and  have  come  to  classify  them  under  three 
general  heads.  Without  considering  the  branch  of  re 
form  in  which  they  are  interested,  but  only  their  char 
acteristics  as  individuals,  I  should  say  that  all  profes 
sional  reformers  might  be  divided  as  follows:  First, 
zealots,  or  "inspired"  reformers;  second,  cold-blooded, 
theoretical,  statistical  reformers;  third,  a  small  number 
of  normal  human  beings,  capable  alike  of  feeling  and 
of  reasoning  clearly. 

About  reformers  of  the  first  type  there  is  often  some 
thing  abnormal.  They  are  frequently  of  the  most  radi 
cal  opinions,  and  are  likely  to  be  impatient,  intolerant, 
and  suspicious  of  the  integrity  of  those  who  do  not  agree 
with  them.  They  take  to  the  platform  like  ducks  to 
water  and  their  egos  are  likely  to  be  very  highly  de 
veloped.  Reformers  of  the  second  type  are  repulsive, 
because  reform,  with  them,  has  become  mechanical; 
they  measure  suffering  and  sin  with  decimals,  and  re 
gard  their  fellow  men  as  specimens.  What  the  re 
former  of  the  third  class  will  do  is  more  difficult  to  say. 
It  is  possible  that,  blowing  neither  hot  nor  cold,  he  will 
not  accomplish  so  much  as  the  others,  but  he  can  reach 
groups  of  persons  who  consider  reformers  of  the  first 
class  unbalanced  and  those  of  the  second  inhuman. 

I  have  a  friend  who  is  a  reformer  of  the  third  class. 
His  temperate  writings,  surcharged  with  sanity  and  a 
sense  of  justice,  have  reached  many  persons  who  could 

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ABROAD  AT  HOME 

hardly  be  affected  by  "yellow"  methods  of  reform.  Be 
coming  deeply  interested  in  his  work,  he  was  finally 
tempted  to  take  the  platform.  One  day,  when  he  had 
come  back  from  a  lecture  tour,  I  chanced  to  meet  him, 
and  was  surprised  to  hear  from  him  that,  though  he  had 
been  successful  as  a  lecturer,  he  nevertheless  intended 
to  abandon  that  field  of  work. 

I  asked  him  why. 

"I  '11  tell  you,"  he  said.  "At  first  it  was  all  right.  I 
had  certain  things  I  wanted  to  say  to  people,  and  I  said 
them.  But  as  I  went  on,  I  began  to  feel  my  audiences 
more  and  more.  I  began  to  know  how  certain  things 
I  said  would  affect  them.  I  began  to  want  to  affect 
them — to  play  upon  them,  see  them  stirred,  hear  them 
applaud.  So,  hardly  realizing  it  at  first,  I  began  shift 
ing  my  speeches,  playing  up  certain  points,  not  so  much 
because  those  points  were  the  ones  which  ought  to  be 
played  up,  but  because  of  the  pleasure  it  gave  me  to 
work  up  my  listeners.  Then,  one  night  while  I  was 
talking,  I  realized  what  was  happening  to  me.  I  was 
losing  my  intellectual  honesty.  Public  speaking  had 
been  stealing  it  from  me  without  my  knowing  it.  Then 
and  there  I  made  up  my  mind  to  give  it  up.  I  'm  not 
going  to  Say  it  any  more ;  I  'm  going  to  Write  it.  When 
a  man  is  writing,  other  minds  are  not  acting  upon  his, 
as  they  are  when  he  is  speaking  to  an  audience." 

Personally,  I  think  Judge  Lindsey  would  be  stronger 
with  the  more  critical  minds  of  Colorado  if  he,  too,  had 
felt  this  way. 

396 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

A  number  of  odd  items  about  Denver  should  be  men 
tioned. 

Elitch's  Garden,  the  city's  great  summer  amusement 
place,  is  famous  all  through  the  country.  It  was  origi 
nally  a  farm,  and  still  has  a  fine  orchard,  besides  its 
orderly  Coney  Island  features.  Children  go  there  in 
the  afternoons  with  their  nurses,  and  all  of  Denver  goes 
there  in  the  evenings  when  the  great  attraction  is  the 
theater  with  its  stock  company  which  is  of  a  very  high 
order. 

The  Tabor  Opera  House  in  Denver  is  famous  among 
theatrical  people  largely  because  of  the  man  who  built  it. 
Tabor  was  one  of  Denver's  most  extraordinary  mining 
millionaires.  After  he  had  struck  it  rich  he  determined 
to  build  as  a  monument  to  himself,  the  finest  Opera 
House  in  the  United  States,  and  "damn  the  expense." 

While  the  building  was  under  construction  he  was 
called  away  from  the  city.  The  story  is  related  that 
on  his  return  he  went  to  see  what  progress  had  been 
made,  and  found  mural  painters  at  work,  over  the 
proscenium  arch.  They  were  painting  the  portrait  of 
a  man. 

"Who's  that?"  demanded  Tabor. 

"Shakespeare,"  the  decorator  informed  him. 

"Shakespeare — shake  hell!"  responded  the  proprie 
tor.  "He  never  done  nothing  for  Denver.  Paint  him 
out  and  put  me  up  there." 

Though  there  have  been  no  Tabors  made  in  Denver 
in  the  last  few  years,  mining  has  not  gone  out  of  fashion. 

397 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

In  the  lobby  of  the  Brown  Palace  Hotel  my  companion 
and  I  saw  several  old  fellows,  sitting  about,  looking 
neither  prosperous  nor  busy,  but  always  talking  mines. 
A  kind  word,  or  even  a  pleasant  glance  is  enough  to 
set  them  off.  Instantly  their  hands  dive  into  their 
pockets  and  out  come  nuggets  and  samples  of  ore,  which 
they  polish  upon  their  coat  sleeves,  and  hold  up  proudly, 
turning  them  to  catch  the  light. 

"Yes,  sir!  I  made  the  doggondest  strike  up  there 
you  ever  saw !  It 's  all  on  the  ground.  Come  over  here 
and  look  at  this !" 

To  which  the  answer  is  likely  to  be : 

"No,  I  have  n't  time." 

The  Denver  Club  is  a  central  rallying  place  for  the 
successful  business  men  of  the  city.  It  is  a  splendid 
club,  with  the  best  of  kitchens,  and  cellars,  and  humidors. 
All  over  the  land  I  have  met  men  who  had  been  enter 
tained  there  and  who  spoke  of  the  place  with  something 
like  affection. 

One  night,  several  weeks  after  we  had  left  Denver, 
we  were  at  the  Bohemian  Club  in  San  Francisco,  and  fell 
to  talking  of  Denver  and  her  clubs. 

"It  was  in  a  club  in  Denver/1  one  man  said,  "that  I 
witnessed  the  most  remarkable  thing  I  saw  in  Colorado." 

"What  was  that?"  we  asked. 

"I  met  a  former  governor  of  the  State  there  one 
night,"  he  said.  "We  sat  around  the  fire.  Every  now 
and  then  he  would  hit  the  very  center  of  a  cuspidor  which 

398 


UNDER  PIKE'S  PEAK 

stood  fifteen  feet  away.  The  remarkable  thing  about  it 
was  that  he  did  n't  look  more  than  forty-five  years  old. 
I  have  always  wondered  how  a  man  of  that  age  could 
have  carried  his  responsibility  as  governor,  yet  have 
found  time  to  learn  to  spit  so  superbly.'1 


399 


CHAPTER  XXXI 
HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

AN  enthusiastic  young  millionaire,  the  son  of  a 
pioneer,  determined  that  my  companion  and  I 
ought  to  see  the  mountain  parks. 

It  was  winter,  and  for  reasons  all  too  plainly  visible 
from  Denver,  no  automobiles  had  attempted  the  ascent 
since  fall,  for  the  mountain  barrier,  rearing  itself  ma 
jestically  to  the  westward,  glittered  appallingly  with  ice 
and  snow. 

"We  can  have  a  try  at  it,  anyway,"  said  our  friend. 

So,  presently,  in  furs,  and  surrounded  by  lunch  bas 
kets  and  thermos  bottles,  we  set  out  for  the  mountains 
in  his  large  six-cylinder  machine. 

Emerging  from  the  city,  and  taking  the  macadamized 
road  which  leads  to  Golden,  we  had  our  first  uninter 
rupted  view  of  the  full  sweep  of  that  serrated  mountain 
wall,  visible  for  almost  a  hundred  miles  north  of  Den 
ver,  and  a  hundred  south;  a  solid,  stupendous  line,  flash 
ing  as  though  the  precious  minerals  had  been  coaxed  out 
to  coruscate  in  the  warm  surface  sunshine. 

There  was  something  operatic  in  that  vast  and  splen 
did  spectacle.  I  felt  that,  the  mountains  and  the  sky 
formed  the  back  drop  in  a  continental  theater,  the  stage 

400 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

of  which  is  made  up  of  thousands  of  square  miles  of 
plains. 

Striking  a  pleasant  pace  we  sped  toward  the  barrier  as 
though  meaning  to  dash  ourselves  against  it;  for  it 
seemed  very  near,  and  our  car  was  like  some  great  moth 
fascinated  by  the  flash  of  ice  and  snow.  However,  as 
is  usual  where  the  air  is  clear  and  the  altitude  great,  the 
eye  is  deceived  as  to  distances  in  Colorado,  and  the  foot 
hills,  which  appear  to  be  not  more  than  three  or  four 
miles  distant  from  Denver,  are  in  reality  a  dozen  miles 
away. 

Denver  has  many  stock  stories  to  illustrate  that  point. 
It  is  related  that  strangers  sometimes  start  to  walk  to 
the  mountains  before  breakfast,  and  the  tale  is  told 
of  one  man  who,  having  walked  for  hours,  and  thus 
discovered  the  illusory  effect  of  the  clear  mountain  air, 
was  found  undressing  by  a  four-foot  irrigation  ditch, 
preparatory  to  swimming  it,  having  concluded  that, 
though  it  looked  narrow,  it  was,  nevertheless  in  reality 
a  river. 

Nor  is  optical  illusion  regarding  distances  the  only 
quality  contained  in  Denver  air.  Denver  and  Colorado 
Springs  are  of  course  famous  resorts  for  persons  with 
weak  lungs,  but  one  need  not  have  weak  lungs  to  feel 
the  tonic  effect  of  the  climate.  Denver  has  little  rain 
and  much  sunshine.  Her  winter  air  seems  actually  to 
hold  in  solution  Colorado  gold.  My  companion  and  I 
found  it  difficult  to  get  to  sleep  at  night  because  of  the 
exhilarating  effect  of  the  air,  but  we  would  awaken  in 

401 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  morning  after  five  or  six  hours'  slumber,  feeling  ab 
normally  lively. 

I  spoke  about  that  to  a  gentleman  who  was  a  member 
of  our  automobile  mountain  party. 

"There  's  no  doubt,"  he  replied,  as  we  bowled  along, 
"that  this  altitude  affects  the  nerves.  Even  animals  feel 
it.  I  have  bought  a  number  of  eastern  show  horses  and 
brought  them  out  here,  and  I  have  found  that  horses 
which  were  entirely  tractable  in  their  habitual  surround 
ings,  would  become  unmanageable  in  our  climate.  Even 
a  pair  of  Percherons  which  were  perfectly  placid  in  St. 
Louis,  where  I  got  them,  stepped  up  like  hackneys  when 
they  reached  Denver. 

"I  think  a  lot  of  the  agitation  we  have  out  here  comes 
from  the  same  thing.  Take  our  passionate  political 
quarreling,  or  our  newspapers  and  the  way  they  abuse 
each  other.  Or  look  at  Judge  Lindsey.  I  think  the 
altitude  is  partly  accountable  for  him,  as  well  as  for  a 
lot  of  things  the  rest  of  us  do.  Of  course  it 's  a  good 
thing  in  one  way :  it  makes  us  energetic ;  but  on  the  other 
hand,  we  are  likely  to  have  less  balance  than  people  who 
don't  live  a  mile  up  in  the  air." 

As  we  talked,  our  car  breezed  toward  the  foothills. 
Presently  we  entered  the  mouth  of  a  narrow  canon  and. 
after  winding  along  rocky  slopes,  emerged  upon  the  town 
of  Golden. 

Golden,  now  known  principally  as  the  seat  of  the  State 
School  of  Mines,  used  to  be  the  capital  of  Colorado. 
Spread  out  upon  a  prairie  the  place  might  assume  an 

402 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

air  of  some  importance,  but  stationed  as  it  is  upon  a  slope, 
surrounded  by  gigantic  peaks,  it  seems  a  trifling  town 
clinging  to  the  mountainside  as  a  fly  clings  to  a  horse's 
back. 

The  slope  upon  which  Golden  is  situated  is  a  com 
paratively  gentle  one,  but  directly  back  of  the  city  the 
angle  changes  and  the  surface  of  the  world  mounts 
abruptly  toward  the  heavens,  which  seem  to  rest  like 
a  great  coverlet  upon  the  upland  snows. 

Rivulets  from  the  melting  white  above,  were  running 
through  the  streets  of  Golden,  turning  them  to  a  sea 
of  mud,  through  which  we  plowed  powerfully  on  "third." 
As  we  passed  into  the  backyard  of  Golden,  the  mountain 
seemed  to  lean  out  over  us. 

"That 's  our  road,  up  there,"  remarked  the  Denver 
gentleman  who  sat  in  the  tonneau,  between  my  com 
panion  and  myself.  He  pointed  upward,  zig-zagging 
with  his  finger. 

We  gazed  at  the  mountainside. 

"You  don't  mean  that  little  dark  slanting  streak  like  a 
wire  running  back  and  forth,  do  you?"  asked  my  com 
panion. 

"Yes,  that  Js  it.  You  see  they  Ve  cut  a  little  nick  into 
the  slope  all  the  way  up  and  made  a  shelf  for  the  road 
to  run  on." 

"Is  there  any  wall  at  the  edge  ?"  I  asked. 

"No,"  he  said.  "There  's  no  wall  yet.  We  may  have 
that  later,  but  you  see  we  have  just  built  this  road." 

"Isn't  there  even  a  fence?" 

403 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

"No.     But  it 's  all  right.     The  road  is  wide  enough." 

Presently  we  reached  the  bottom  of  the  road,  and  be 
gan  the  actual  ascent. 

"Is  this  it?"  asked  my  companion. 

"Yes,  this  is  it.     You  see  the  pavement  is  good/' 

"But  I  thought  you  said  the  road  was  wide  ?" 

"Well,  it  is  wide — that  is,  for  a  mountain  road.  You 
can't  expect  a  mountain  road  to  be  as  wide  as  a  city 
boulevard,  you  know." 

"But  suppose  we  should  meet  somebody,"  I  put  in. 
"How  would  we  pass?" 

"There  's  room  enough  to  pass,"  said  the  Denver  gen 
tleman.  "You  Ve  only  got  to  be  a  little  careful.  But 
there  is  no  chance  of  our  meeting  any  one.  Most  peo 
ple  would  n't  think  of  trying  this  road  in  winter  because 
of  the  snow." 

"Do  you  mean  that  the  snow  makes  it  dangerous?" 
asked  my  companion. 

"Some  people  seem  to  think  so,"  said  the  Denver  gen 
tleman. 

Meanwhile  the  gears  had  been  singing  their  shrill, 
incessant  song  as  we  mounted,  swiftly.  My  seat  was 
at  the  outside  of  the  road.  I  turned  my  head  in  the 
direction  of  the  plains.  From  where  I  sat  the  edge  of  the 
road  was  invisible.  I  had  a  sense  of  being  wafted  along 
through  the  air  with  nothing  but  a  cushion  between  me 
and  an  abyss.  I  leaned  out  a  little,  and  looked  down 
at  the  wheel  beneath  me.  Then  I  saw  that  several  feet 
of  pavement,  lightly  coated  with  snow,  intervened  be- 

404 


"Ain't  Nature  wonderful !' 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

tween  the  tire,  and  the  awful  edge.  Beyond  the  edge 
was  several  hundred  feet  of  sparkling  air,  and  beyond 
the  air  I  saw  the  roofs  of  Golden. 

One  of  these  roofs  annoyed  me.  I  do  not  know  the 
nature  of  the  building  it  adorned.  It  may  have  been  a 
church,  or  a  school,  or  a  town  hall.  I  only  know  that 
the  building  had  a  tower,  rising  to  an  acute  point  from 
which  a  lightning  rod  protruded  like  a  skewer.  When 
I  first  caught  sight  of  it  I  shuddered  and  turned  my  eyes 
upward  toward  the  mountain.  I  did  not  like  to  gaze  up 
at  the  heights  which  we  had  yet  to  climb,  but  I  liked  it 
better  on  the  whole  than  looking  down  into  the  depths 
below. 

"What  mountain  do  you  call  this  ?"  I  asked,  trying  to 
make  diverting  conversation. 

"Which  one?"  asked  the  Denver  gentleman. 

"The  one  we  are  climbing." 

"This  is  just  one  of  the  foothills,"  he  declared. 

"Oh,"  I  said. 

"If  this  is  a  foothill,"  remarked  my  companion,  "I 
suppose  the  Adirondacks  are  children's  sand  piles." 

"See  how  blue  the  plains  are,"  said  the  Denver  gentle 
man  sweeping  the  landscape  with  his  arm.  "People 
compare  them  with  the  sea." 

I  did  not  wish  to  see  how  blue  the  plains  were,  but 
out  of  courtesy  I  looked.  Then  I  turned  my  eyes  away, 
hastily.  The  spacious  view  did  not  strike  me  in  the 
sense  of  beauty,  but  in  the  pit  of  the  stomach.  In  look 
ing  away  from  the  plains,  I  tried  to  do  so  without  no- 

405 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

ticing  the  town  below.  I  did  not  wish  to  contemplate 
that  pointed  tower,  again.  But  a  terrible  curiosity 
drew  my  eyes  down.  Yes,  there  was  Golden,  looking 
like  a  toy  village.  And  there  was  the  tower,  pointing 
up  at  me.  I  could  not  see  the  lightning  rod  now,  but 
I  knew  that  it  was  there.  Again  I  looked  up  at  the 
peaks. 

For  a  time  we  rode  on  in  silence.  I  noticed  that  the 
snow  on  the  slope  beside  us,  and  in  the  road,  was  be 
coming  deeper  now,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  daunt  our 
powerful  machine.  Up,  up  we  went  without  slackening 
our  pace. 

"Look!"  exclaimed  the  Denver  gentleman  after  a 
time.  "You  can  see  Denver  now,  just  over  the  top  of 
South  Table  Mountain." 

Again  I  was  forced  to  turn  my  eyes  in  the  direction 
of  the  plains.  Yes,  there  was  Denver,  looking  like  some 
dream  island  of  Maxfield  Parrish's  in  the  sea  of  plain. 

I  tried  to  look  away  again  at  once,  but  the  Denver 
man  kept  pointing  and  insisting  that  I  see  it  all. 

"South  Table  Mountain,  over  the  top  of  which  you  are 
now  looking,"  he  said,  "is  the  same  hill  we  skirted  in 
coming  into  Golden.  We  were  at  the  bottom  of  it  then. 
That  will  show  you  how  we  have  climbed  already." 

"We  must  be  halfway  up  by  now,"  said  my  companion 
hopefully. 

"Oh,  no;  not  yet.  We  are  only  about — "  There  he 
broke  off  suddenly  and  clutched  at  the  side  of  the  ton- 
neau.  Our  front  wheels  had  slipped  sidewise  in  the 

406 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

snow,  upon  a  turn,  and  had  brought  us  very  near  the 
edge.  Again  something  drew  my  eyes  to  Golden.  It 
was  no  longer  a  toy  village ;  it  was  now  a  map.  But  the 
tower  was  still  there.  However  far  we  drove  we  never 
seemed  to  get  away  from  it. 

Where  the  brilliant  sunlight  lay  upon  the  snow,  it 
was  melting,  but  in  shaded  places  it  was  dry  as  talcum 
powder.  Rounding  another  turn  we  came  upon  a  place 
of  deep  shadow,  where  the  riotous  mountain  winds  had 
blown  the  dry  snow  into  drifts.  One  after  the  other  we 
could  see  them  reaching  away  like  white  waves  toward 
the  next  angle  in  the  road. 

My  heart  leaped  with  joy  at  the  sight,  and  as  I  felt 
the  restraining  grip  of  the  brakes  upon  our  wheels,  I 
blessed  the  elements  which  barred  our  way. 

"Well,"  I  cried  to  our  host  as  the  car  stood  still.  "It 
has  been  a  wonderful  ride.  I  never  thought  we  should 
get  as  far  as  this." 

"Neither  did  I!"  exclaimed  my  companion  rising  to 
his  feet.  "I  guess  I  '11  get  out  and  stretch  my  legs  while 
you  turn  around." 

"So  will  I,"  I  said. 

Our  host  looked  back  at  us. 

"Turn  around?"  he  repeated.  "I  'm  not  going  to  turn 
around." 

My  companion  measured  the  road  with  his  eye. 

"It  is  sort  of  narrow  for  a  turn,  isn't  it?"  he  said. 
"What  will  you  do — back  down?" 

"Back  nothing!"  said  our  host.  "I  'm  going  through." 

407 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

The  pioneer  in  him  had  spoken.  His  jaw  was  set. 
The  joy  that  I  had  felt  ebbed  suddenly  away.  I  seemed 
to  feel  it  leaking  through  the  soles  of  my  feet.  We 
had  stopped  in  the  shadow.  It  was  cold  there  and  the 
wind  was  blowing  hard.  I  did  not  like  that  place,  but 
little  as  I  liked  it,  I  fairly  yearned  to  stop  there. 

I  heard  the  gears  click  as  they  meshed.  The  car 
leaped  forward,  struck  the  drift,  bounded  into  it  with 
a  drunken,  slewing  motion,  penetrated  for  some  distance 
and  finally  stopped,  her  headlights  buried  in  the  snow. 

Again  I  heard  a  click  as  our  host  shifted  to  reverse. 
Then,  with  a  furious  spinning  of  wheels,  which  cast 
the  dry  snow  high  in  air,  we  made  a  bouncing,  back 
ward  leap  and  cleared  the  drift,  but  only  to  charge  it 
again. 

This  time  we  managed  to  get  through.  Nor  did  we 
stop  at  that.  Having  passed  the  first  drift,  we  retained 
our  momentum  and  kept  on  through  those  that  fol 
lowed,  hitting  them  as  a  power  dory  hits  succeeding 
waves  in  a  choppy  sea,  churning  our  way  along  with  a 
rocking,  careening,  crazy  motion,  now  menaced  by  great 
boulders  at  the  inside  of  the  road,  now  by  the  deadly 
drop  at  the  outside,  until  at  last  we  managed,  somehow, 
to  navigate  the  turning,  after  which  we  stopped  in  a 
place  comparatively  clear  of  snow. 

Our  host  turned  to  us  with  a  smile. 

"She  's  a  good  old  snow-boat,  isn't  she?"  he  said. 

With  great  solemnity  my  companion  and  I  admitted 

that  she  was. 

408 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

Even  the  Denver  gentleman  who  occupied  the  tonneau 
with  us,  seemed  somewhat  shaken. 

aOf  course  the  snow  will  be  worse  farther  up,"  he  said 
to  our  host.  "Do  you  think  it  is  worth  going  on?" 

"Of  course  it  is,"  our  host  replied.  "I  want  these 
boys  to  see  the  main  range  of  the  Rockies.  That 's 
what  we  came  up  for,  is  n't  it  ?" 

"Yes,"  said  my  companion,  "but  we  wouldn't  want 
you  to  spoil  your  car  on  our  account." 

It  was  an  unfortunate  remark. 

"Spoil  her!"  cried  our  host.  "Spoil  this  machine? 
You  don't  know  her.  You  have  n't  seen  what  she  can 
do,  yet.  Just  wait  until  we  hit  a  real  drift!" 

The  cigar  which  I  had  been  smoking  when  I  left  Den 
ver  was  still  in  my  mouth.  It  had  gone  out  long  since, 
but  I  had  been  too  much  engrossed  with  other  things 
to  notice  it.  Instead  of  relighting  it,  I  had  been  turn 
ing  it  over  and  over  between  my  teeth,  and  now  in  an 
emotional  moment,  I  chewed  at  it  so  hard  that  it  sagged 
down  against  my  chin.  I  removed  it  from  my  mouth, 
and  tossed  it  over  the  edge.  It  cleared  the  road  and 
sailed  out  into  space,  down,  down,  down,  turning  over 
and  over  in  the  air,  as  it  went.  And  as  I  watched  its 
evolutions,  my  blood  chilled,  for  I  thought  to  myself 
that  the  body  of  a  falling  man  would  turn  in  just  that 
way — that  my  body  would  be  performing  similar  aerial 
evolutions,  should  our  car  slew  off  the  road  in  the  course 
of  some  mad  charge  against  a  drift. 

I  was  by  this  time  very  definitely  aware  that  I  had 

409 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

my  fill  of  winter  motoring  in  the  mountains.  The  mere 
reluctance  I  had  felt  as  we  began  to  climb  had  now  de 
veloped  into  a  passionate  desire  to  desist.  I  am  no  great 
pedestrian.  Under  ordinary  circumstances  the  idea  of 
climbing  a  mountain  on  foot  would  never  occur  to  me. 
But  now,  since  I  could  not  turn  back,  since  I  must  go 
to  the  top  to  satisfy  my  host,  I  fairly  yearned  to  walk 
there.  Indeed,  I  would  have  gladly  crawled  there  on 
my  hands  and  knees,  through  snowdrifts,  rather  than 
to  have  proceeded  farther  in  that  touring  car. 

Obviously,  however,  craft  was  necessary. 

"I  believe  I  '11  get  out  and  limber  up  a  little,"  I  said, 
rising  from  my  seat. 

My  companions  of  the  tonneau  seemed  to  be  of  the 
same  mind.  All  three  of  us  alighted  in  the  snow. 

"How  far  is  it  to  the  top  ?"  I  asked  our  host. 

"A  couple  of  miles,"  he  said. 

"Is  that  all  ?"  I  replied.     "Could  n't  we  walk  it,  then  ?" 

I  was  touched  by  the  avidity  with  which  my  two  com 
panions  seized  on  the  suggestion.  Only  our  host  ob 
jected. 

"What  Js  the  matter  ?"  he  demanded  in  an  injured 
tone.  "Don't  you  think  my  car  can  make  it?  If  you  '11 
just  get  in  again  you  '11  soon  see!" 

"Heavens,  no!"  I  answered.  "That's  not  it.  Of 
course  we  know  your  car  can  do  it." 

"Yes ;  oh,  yes,  of  course !"  the  other  two  chimed  in. 

"All  I  was  thinking  of,"  I  added,  "was  the  exercise." 

"That 's  it,"  my  companion  cried.  "Exercise.  We 

410 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

have  n't  had  a  bit  of  exercise  since  we  left  New  York." 

"I  need  it,  too!"  put  in  the  Denver  man.  "My  wife 
says  I  'm  getting  fat." 

"Oh,  if  it 's  exercise  you  want,"  said  our  host,  "I  'm 
with  you." 

Even  the  spirits  of  the  chauffeur  seemed  to  rise  as 
his  employer  alighted. 

"I  think  I  had  better  stay  with  the  car,  sir,"  he  said. 

"All  right,  all  right,"  said  our  host  indifferently. 
"You  can  be  turning  her  around.  We  '11  be  back  in  a 
couple  of  hours  or  so." 

The  chauffeur  looked  at  the  edge. 

"Well,"  he  said,  "I  don't  know  but  what  the  exercise 
will  do  me  good,  too.  I  guess  I  '11  come  along  if  you 
don't  mind,  sir." 

On  foot  we  could  pick  our  way,  avoiding  the  larger 
drifts,  so  that,  for  the  most  part,  we  merely  trudged 
through  snow  a  foot  deep.  But  it  was  uphill  work  in 
the  sun,  and  before  long  overcoats  were  removed  and 
cached  at  the  roadside,  weighted  down  against  the  wind 
with  stones.  Now  and  then  we  left  the  road  and  took 
a  short  cut  up  the  mountainside,  wading  through  drifts 
which  were  sometimes  armpit  deep  and  joining  the  road 
again  where  it  doubled  back  at  a  higher  elevation.  Pres 
ently  our  coats  came  off,  then  our  waistcoats,  until  at 
last  all  five  of  us  were  in  our  shirts,  making  a  strange 
picture  in  such  a  wintry  landscape. 

Now  that  the  dread  of  skidding  was  removed  I  be 
gan  to  enjoy  myself,  taking  keen  delight  in  the  marvel- 

411 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

ous  blue  plains  spread  out  everywhere  to  the  eastward, 
and  inhaling  great  drafts  of  effervescent  air. 

When  we  had  struggled  upward  for  perhaps  two 
hours  we  left  the  road  and  assailed  a  little  peak,  from  the 
top  of  which  our  host  believed  the  main  range  of  the 
Rockies  would  be  visible.  The  slope  was  rather  steep, 
but  the  ground  beneath  the  snow  was  fairly  smooth, 
giving  us  moderately  good  footing.  By  making  trans 
verse  paths  we  zigzagged  without  much  difficulty  to  the 
top,  which  was  sharp,  like  the  backbone  of  some  gigantic 
animal. 

I  must  admit  that  I  had  not  been  so  anxious  to  see 
the  main  range  as  my  Denver  friends  had  been  to  have 
me  see  it.  It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  any  mountain 
spectacle  could  be  much  finer  than  that  presented  by 
the  glittering  wall  as  seen  from  Denver.  I  had  ex 
pected  to  be  disappointed  at  the  sight  of  the  main  range, 
and  I  am  glad  that  I  expected  that,  because  it  made  all 
the  greater  the  thrill  which  I  felt  when,  on  topping  the 
hill,  I  saw  what  was  beyond. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  experience  in  life  can  give 
the  ordinary  man — the  man  who  is  not  a  real  explorer 
of  new  places — the  sense  of  actual  discovery  and  oi 
great  achievement,  which  he  may  attain  by  laboring  up 
a  slope  and  looking  over  it  at  a  vast  range  of  mountains 
glittering,  peak  upon  peak,  into  the  distance.  The  sen 
sation  is  overwhelming.  It  fills  one  with  a  strange 
kind  of  exaltation,  like  that  which  is  produced  by  great 
music  played  by  a  splendid  orchestra.  The  golden  air, 

412 


o       - 

c  3 


cr  ^_ 


II 


PC 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

vibrating  and  shimmering,  is  like  the  tremolo  of  violins ; 
the  shadows  in  the  abysses  are  like  the  deep  throbbing 
notes  of  violoncellos  and  double  basses;  while  the  great 
peaks,  rising  in  their  might  and  majesty,  suggest  the 
surge  and  rumble  of  pipe  organs  echoing  to  the  vault  of 
heaven. 

I  had  often  heard  that,  to  some  people,  certain  kinds 
of  music  suggest  certain  colors.  Here,  in  the  silence 
of  the  mountains,  I  understood  that  thing  for  the  first 
time,  for  the  vast  forms  of  those  jewel-encrusted  hills 
seemed  to  give  off  a  superb  symphonic  song — a  song 
with  an  air  which,  when  I  let  my  mind  drift  with  it, 
seemed  to  become  definite,  but  which,  when  I  tried  to 
follow  it,  melted  into  vague,  elusive  harmonies. 

There  is  no  place  in  the  world  where  Man  can  get 
along  for  more  than  two  or  three  minutes  at  a  time  with 
out  thinking  of  himself.  Everything  with  which  he 
comes  in  contact  suggests  him  to  himself.  Nothing  is 
too  small,  nothing  too  stupendous,  to  make  man  think 
of  man.  If  he  sees  an  ant  he  thinks:  "That,  in  its 
humble  way,  is  a  little  replica  of  me,  doing  my  work." 
But  when  he  looks  upon  a  mountain  range  he  thinks 
more  salutary  thoughts,  for  if  his  thoughts  about  him 
self  are  ever  humble,  they  will  be  humble  then.  In 
deed,  it  would  be  like  man  to  say  that  that  was  the  pur 
pose  with  which  mountains  were  made — to  humble  him. 
For  it  is  man's  pleasure  to  think  that  everything  in  the 
universe  was  created  with  some  definite  relation  to  him 
self. 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

However  that  may  be,  it  is  man's  habit,  when  he  looks 
upon  the  mountains,  to  endeavor  to  make  up  for  the  long 
vainglorious  years  with  a  brief  but  complete  orgy  of 
self-abnegation.  And  that,  of  course,  is  a  good  thing 
for  him,  although  it  seems  a  pity  that  he  cannot  spread 
it  thinner  and  thereby  make  it  last  him  longer.  But 
man  does  not  like  to  take  his  humility  that  way.  He 
prefers  to  take  it  like  any  other  sickening  medicine,  gulp 
ing  it  down  in  one  big  draft,  and  getting  it  over  with. 
That  is  the  reason  man  can  never  bear  to  stay  for  any 
length  of  time  upon  a  mountain  top.  Up  there  he  finds 
out  what  he  really  is,  and  for  man  to  find  that  out  is, 
naturally,  painful. 

As  he  looks  at  the  mountains  the  ego,  which  is  99  per 
cent,  of  him,  begins  to  shrivel  up.  He  may  not  feel  it 
at  first.  Probably  he  does  n't.  Very  likely  he  begins 
by  writing  his  own  name  in  the  eternal  snows,  or  scratch 
ing  his  initials  on  a  rock.  But  presently  he  gazes  off 
into  space  and  remarks  with  the  Poet  Towne:  "Ain't 
Nature  wonderful !"  And,  of  course,  after  that  he  be 
gins  to  think  of  himself  again,  saying  with  a  great  sense 
of  discovery:  "What  a  little  thing  I  am!"  Then,  as 
his  ego  shrinks  farther,  the  orgy  of  humility  begins. 

"What  am  I,"  he  cries,  "in  the  eyes  of  the  eternal 
hills?  I  am  relatively  unimportant!  By  George,  I 
should  n't  be  surprised  if  I  were  a  miserable  atom !  Yes, 
that 's  what  I  am !  I  am  a  frail,  wretched  thing,  created 
but  to  be  consumed.  My  life  is  but  a  day.  I  am  a 
poor,  two-legged  nonentity,  trotting  about  the  surface 

414 


HITTING  A  HIGH  SPOT 

of  an  enormous  ball.  I  am  filled  with  egotism  and  self- 
interest.  I  call  myself  civilized — and  why?  Because 
I  have  learned  to  make  sounds  through  my  mouth,  and 
have  assigned  certain  meanings  to  these  sounds ;  because 
I  have  learned  to  mark  down  certain  symbols,  to  repre 
sent  these  sounds;  and  because,  with  my  sounds  and 
symbols,  I  can  maintain  a  ragged  interchange  of  ragged 
thought  with  other  men,  getting  myself,  for  the  most 
part,  beautifully  misunderstood. 

"Of  what  else  is  my  life  composed?  Of  the  search 
for  something  I  call  'pleasure*  and  something  else  I  call 
'success/  which  is  represented  by  piles  of  little  yellow 
metal  disks  that  I  designate  by  the  silly-sounding  word, 
'money/  I  spend  six  days  in  the  week  in  search  of 
money,  and  on  the  seventh  day  I  relax  and  read  the 
Sunday  newspapers,  or  put  on  my  silk  hat  and  go  to 
church,  where  I  call  God's  attention  to  myself  in  every 
way  I  can,  praying  to  Him  with  prayers  which  have  to 
be  written  for  me  because  I  have  n't  brains  enough  to 
make  a  good  prayer  of  my  own ;  singing  hymns  to  Him 
in  a  voice  which  ought  never  to  be  raised  in  song;  tell 
ing  Him  that  I  know  He  watches  over  me;  putting  a 
little  metal  disk,  of  small  denomination,  in  the  plate  for 
Him ;  then  putting  on  my  shiny  hat  again — which  I  know 
pleases  Him  very  much — going  home  and  eating  too 
much  dinner." 

That  is  the  way  man  thinks  about  himself  upon  a 
mountain  top.  Naturally  he  can  only  stand  it  for  a  little 
while  before  his  contracting  ego  begins  to  shriek  in  pain. 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Then  man  says:  "I  have  enjoyed  the  view.  I  will 
note  the  fact  in  the  visitors'  book  if  there  happens  to  be 
one,  after  which  I  will  retire  from  this  high  elevation  to 
the  world  below." 

Going  down  the  mountain  he  begins  to  say  to  him 
self :  "What  wonderful  thoughts  I  have  been  thinking 
up  there!  I  have  had  thoughts  which  very  few  other 
men  are  capable  of  thinking !  I  have  a  remarkable  mind 
if  I  only  take  the  time  to  use  it!" 

So,  as  he  goes  down,  his  ego  keeps  on  swelling  up 
again  until  it  not  only  reaches  its  normal  size,  but  be 
comes  larger  than  ever,  because  the  man  now  believes 
that,  in  addition  to  all  he  was  before,  he  has  become  a 
philosopher. 

"I  must  write  a  book!"  he  says  to  himself.  "I  must 
give  these  remarkable  ideas  of  mine  to  the  world !" 

And.  as  vou  see,  he  sometimes  does  it. 


416 


The  homes  of  Colorado   Springs  really  explain  the  place  and  the 
society  is  as  cosmopolitan  as  the  architecture 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
COLORADO  SPRINGS 

IN  a  certain  city  that  I  visited  upon  my  travels,  I  met 
one  night  at  dinner,  one  of  those  tall,  pink-cheeked, 
slim-legged  young  polo-playing  Englishmen,  who 
proceeded  to  tell  me  in  his  positive,  British  way,  exactly 
what  the  United  States  amounted  to.  He  said  New 
York  was  ripping.  He  said  San  Francisco  was  ripping. 
He  said  American  girls  were  ripping. 

"But,"  said  he,  "there  are  just  two  really  civilized 
places  between  your  Atlantic  and  Pacific  coasts," 

The  idea  entertained  me.  I  asked  which  places  he 
meant. 

"Chicago,"  he  said,  "and  Colorado  Springs." 

"But  Colorado  Springs  is  a  little  bit  of  a  place,  is  n't 
it?"  I  asked  him. 

"About  thirty  thousand." 

"Why  is  it  so  especially  civilized?" 

"It  just  is,  y'  know,"  he  answered.  "There  's  polo 
there." 

"But  polo  does  n't  make  civilization,"  I  said. 

"Oh,  yes,  it  does,"  he  insisted.  "I  mean  to  say  wher 
ever  you  find  polo  you  find  good  clubs  and  good  society 
and — usually — good  tea." 

This,  and  further  rumors  of  a  like  nature,  plus  some 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

pleasant  letters  of  introduction,  caused  my  companion 
and  me  to  remove  ourselves,  one  afternoon,  from  Den 
ver  to  the  vaunted  seat  of  civilization,  some  miles  to  the 
south. 

Colorado  Springs  is  somewhat  higher  than  Denver 
and  seems  to  nestle  closer  to  the  mountains.  The  mo 
ment  you  alight  from  the  train  and  see  the  park,  facing 
the  station  and  the  pleasant  fagade  of  the  Antlers  Hotel, 
beyond,  you  feel  the  peculiar  charm  of  the  little  city. 
It  is  well  laid-out,  with  very  wide  streets,  very  good 
public  buildings  and  office  buildings,  and  really  remark 
able  homes. 

The  homes  of  Colorado  Springs  really  explain  the 
place.  They  are  of  every  variety  of  architecture,  and 
are  inhabited  by  a  corresponding  variety  of  people. 
You  will  see  half-timbered  English  houses,  built  by 
Englishmen  and  Scots;  Southern  colonial  houses  built 
by  people  from  the  South  Atlantic  States ;  New  England 
colonial  houses  built  by  families  who  have  migrated 
from  the  regions  of  Boston  and  New  York;  one-story 
houses  built  by  people  from  Hawaii,  and  a  large  assort 
ment  of  other  houses  ranging  from  Queen  Anne  to  Cape 
Cod  cottages,  and  from  Italian  villas  to  Spanish  pal 
aces.  There  is  even  the  Grand  Trianon  at  Broadmoor, 
and  an  amazing  Tudor  castle  at  Glen  Eyre. 

The  society  is  as  cosmopolitan  as  the  architecture. 
It  has  been  drawn  with  perfect  impartiality  from  the 
well-to-do  class  in  all  parts  of  the  country  and  has  been 
assembled  in  this  charming  garden  town  with,  for  the 

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COLORADO  SPRINGS 

most  part,  a  common  reason — to  fight  against  tuber 
culosis.  This  does  not  mean,  of  course,  that  the  ma 
jority  of  people  in  Colorado  Springs  are  victims  of  tuber 
culosis,  but  only  that,  in  many  instances,  families  have 
moved  there  because  of  the  affliction  of  one  member. 

I  say  "affliction."  Literally,  I  suppose  the  word  is 
justified.  But  perhaps  the  most  striking  thing  about 
society  in  Colorado  Springs  is  its  apparent  freedom  from 
affliction.  One  goes  to  the  most  delightful  dinner  par 
ties,  there,  in  the  most  delightful  houses,  and  meets  the 
most  delightful  people.  Every  one  seems  very  gay. 
Every  one  looks  well.  Yet  one  knows  that  there  are 
certain  persons  present  who  are  out  there  for  their 
health.  The  question  is,  which?  It  is  impossible  to 
tell. 

In  the  case  of  one  couple  I  met,  I  decided  that  the  wife 
who  was  slender  and  rather  pale,  had  been  the  cause  of 
migration  from  the  East.  But  before  I  left,  the  stocky, 
ruddy  husband  told  me,  in  the  most  cheerful  manner 
that  he  had  arrived  there  twenty  years  before  with  "six 
months  to  live."  That  is  the  way  it  is  out  there.  There 
is  no  feeling  of  depression.  There  is  no  air  of,  "Shh! 
Don't  speak  of  it!"  Tuberculosis  is  taken  quite  as  a 
matter  of  course,  and  is  spoken  of,  upon  occasion,  with 
a  lightness  and  freedom  which  is  likely  to  surprise  the 
visitor.  They  even  give  it  what  one  man  designated  as 
a  "pet  name,"  calling  it  "T.  B." 

Club  life  in  Colorado  Springs  is  highly  developed. 
The  El  Paso  Club  is  not  merely  a  good  club  for  such  a 

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small  city,  but  would  be  a  very  good  club  anywhere. 
One  has  only  to  penetrate  as  far  as  the  cigar  stand  to 
discover  that — for  a  club  may  always  be  known  by  the 
cigars  it  keeps.  So,  too,  with  the  Cheyenne  Mountain 
Country  Club  at  Broadmoor,  a  suburb  of  the  Springs.  It 
is  n't  one  of  those  small-town  country  clubs,  in  which, 
after  ringing  vainly  for  the  waiter,  you  go  out  to  the 
kitchen  and  find  him  for  yourself,  in  his  shirtsleeves  and 
minus  a  collar.  Nor,  when  he  puts  in  his  appearance,  is 
he  wearing  a  spotted  alpaca  coat  that  does  n't  fit.  With 
out  being  in  the  least  pretentious,  it  is  a  real  country 
club,  run  for  men  and  women  who  know  what  a  real 
club  is. 

When  you  sit  at  luncheon  at  the  large  round  table  in 
the  men's  cafe  you  may  find  yourself  between  a  famous 
polo-player  from  Meadowbrook,  and  a  bronzed  young 
ranch-owner,  who  will  tell  you  that  cattle  rustling  still 
goes  on  in  his  section  of  the  country.  The  latter  you 
will  take  for  a  perfect  product  of  the  West,  a  "gentle 
man  cowboy/'  from  a  novel.  But  presently  you  will 
learn  that  he  is  a  member  of  that  almost  equally  fictitious 
thing,  an  "old  New  York  family,"  that  he  has  been  in 
the  West  but  a  year  or  two,  and  that  he  was  in  "Tark's 
class"  at  Princeton.  So  on  around  the  table.  One  man 
has  just  arrived  from  Paris ;  another  from  Honolulu,  or 
the  Philippines,  or  China  or  Japan.  And  when,  as  we 
were  sitting  there,  a  man  came  in  whom  I  had  met  in 
Rome  ten  years  before,  I  said  to  myself:  This  is  not 
life.  It  is  the  beginning  of  a  short  story  by  some  dis- 

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COLORADO  SPRINGS 

ciple  of  Mrs.  Wharton :  A  group  of  cosmopolitans  seated 
around  a  table  in  a  club.  Casual  mention  of  Bombay, 
Buda-Pesth  and  Singapore.  Presently  some  man  will 
flick  his  cigarette  ash  and  say,  "By  the  way,  De  Courcey, 
what  ever  became  of  the  queer  little  chap  we  used  to  see 
at  the  officer's  mess  in  Simla?"  Whereupon  De  Cour 
cey,  late  of  the  Lancers,  and  second  son  of  Lord  Thus- 
andso,  will  light  a  fresh  Corona  and  recount,  according 
to  the  accepted  formula,  the  story  of  The  Queer  Little 
Chap. 

I  could  even  imagine  the  illustrations  for  the  story. 
They  would  be  by  Wenzell,  and  would  show  us  there,  in 
the  club,  like  a  group  of  sleek  Greek  statues,  clothed  in 
full  afternoon  regalia  of  the  most  unbelievable  smooth 
ness — looking,  in  short,  not  at  all  like  ourselves,  or  any 
body  else. 

However,  the  story  of  The  Queer  Little  Chap  was  not 
told.  That  is  the  trouble  with  trying  to  live  short 
stories.  You  can  get  them  started,  sometimes,  but  they 
never  work  out.  If  the  setting  is  all  right,  the  story 
somehow  will  not  "break,"  whereas,  on  the  other  hand, 
when  the  surroundings  are  absolutely  wrong,  when  the 
wrong  people  are  present,  when  the  conditions  are  ut 
terly  impossible,  your  short  story  will  break  violently 
and  without  warning,  and  will  very  likely  cover  you  with 
spots.  The  trouble  is  that  life,  in  its  more  fragmentary 
departments,  lacks  what  we  call  "form"  and  "composi 
tion."  There  is  something  amateurish  about  it.  Nine 
editors  out  of  ten  would  reject  a  short  story  written  by 

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the  Hand  of  Fate,  on  this  ground,  and  would  probably 
advise  Fate  to  go  and  take  a  course  in  short-story-writ 
ing  at  some  university.  No ;  Fate  has  not  the  short  story 
gift.  She  writes  novels — rather  long  and  rambling, 
most  of  them,  like  those  of  De  Morgan  or  Romaine  Rol- 
land.  But  even  her  novels  are  not  popular.  People  say 
they  are  too  long.  They  can't  be  bothered  reading  novels 
which  consume  a  whole  lifetime.  Besides,  Fate  seldom 
supplies  a  happy  ending,  and  that 's  what  people  want, 
now-a-days.  So,  though  Fate's  novels  are  given  away, 
they  have  no  vogue. 

Having  somehow  digressed  from  clubs  to  authorship 
I  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  wandering  still  further 
from  my  trail  here  to  mention  Andy  Adams. 

A  long  time  ago,  ex-Governor  Hunt  expressed  lack 
of  faith  in  the  future  of  Colorado  Springs  because,  at 
that  time,  there  was  not  much  water  to  be  found  there, 
and  further  because  the  town  had  "too  many  writers  of 
original  poetry."  So  far  as  I  could  judge,  from  a  brief 
visit,  things  have  changed.  There  is  plenty  of  water, 
and  I  did  not  meet  a  single  poet.  However,  I  did  meet 
an  author,  and  he  is  a  real  one.  Andy  Adams's  card 
proclaims  him  author,  but  more  than  this,  his  books  do, 
also.  Himself  a  former  cowboy,  he  writes  cowboy 
stories  which  prove  that  cowboy  stories  need  not  be 
as  false,  and  as  maudlinly  romantic  as  most  cowboy 
stories  manage  to  be.  You  don't  have  to  know  the 
plains  to  know  that  Mr.  Adams's  tales  are  true,  any 
more  than  you  have  to  know  anatomy  to  understand 

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COLORADO  SPRINGS 

that  a  man  can't  stand  without  a  backbone.  Truth  is 
the  backbone  of  Mr.  Adams's  writings,  and  the  body  of 
them  has  that  rare  kind  of  beauty  which  may,  perhaps, 
be  likened  to  the  body  of  some  cowboy — some  perfect 
physical  specimen  from  Mr.  Adams's  own  pages. 

I  have  not  read  all  his  books,  and  the  only  reason 
why  I  have  not  is  that  I  have  not  yet  had  time.  But  so 
far  as  I  have  read  I  have  not  found  one  false  note  in 
them.  I  have  not  come  upon  a  "lone  horseman"  rid 
ing  through  the  gulch  at  eventide.  I  have  not  encoun 
tered  the  daughter  of  an  eastern  millionaire  who  has 
ridden  out  to  see  the  sunset.  Nor  have  I  stumbled  on 
a  romantic  meeting  or  a  theatrical  rescue. 

So  far  as  I  know,  Mr.  Adams's  book  "The  Log  of  a 
Cowboy,"  is  preeminently  the  classic  of  the  plains.  One 
of  its  greatest  qualities  is  that  of  ceaseless  movement. 
Three  thousand  head  of  cattle  are  driven  through  those 
chapters,  from  the  Mexican  frontier  to  the  Canada  bor 
der,  and  those  cattle  travel  with  a  flow  as  irresistible  as 
the  unrelenting  flow  of  De  Quincey's  Tartar  tribe. 

The  author  is  one  of  those  absolutely  basic  things,  a 
natural  story  teller,  and  the  fine  simplicity  of  his  writ 
ing  springs  not  from  education  ("All  the  schooling 
I  ever  had  I  picked  up  at  a  cross-roads  country  school 
house"),  not  from  an  academic  knowledge  of  "litera 
ture,"  but  from  primary  qualities  in  his  own  nature, 
and  the  strong,  ingenuous  outlook  of  his  own  two  eyes. 

Mr.  Henry  Russell  Wray  tells  of  a  request  from  east 
ern  publishers  for  a  brief  sketch  of  Adams's  life.  He 

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asked  Adams  to  write  about  two  hundred  words  about 
himself,  as  though  dealing  with  another  being.  The 
next  day  he  received  this : 

A  native  of  Indiana ;  went  to  Texas  during  his  youth ;  worked 
over  ten  years  on  cattle  ranches  and  on  the  trail,  rising  from 
common  hand  on  the  latter  to  a  foreman.  Quit  cattle  fifteen 
years  ago,  following  business  and  mining  occupations  since. 
When  contrasted  with  the  present  generation  is  just  beginning  to 
realize  that  the  old  days  were  romantic,  though  did  not  think  so 
when  sitting  a  saddle  sixteen  to  twenty-four  hours  a  day  in  all 
kinds  of  weather.  His  insight  into  cattle  life  was  not  obtained 
from  the  window  of  a  Pullman  car,  but  close  to  the  soil  and  from 
the  hurricane  deck  of  a  Texas  horse.  Even  to-day  is  a  better 
cowman  than  writer,  for  he  can  yet  rope  and  tie  down  a  steer 
with  any  of  the  boys,  though  the  loop  of  his  rope  may  settle  on 
the  wrong  foot  of  the  rhetoric  occasionally.  He  is  of  Irish  and 
Scotch  parentage.  Forty-three  years  of  age,  six  feet  in  height 
and  weighs  210  pounds. 

Though  I  met  Mr.  Adams  at  Colorado  Springs,  I  shall, 
for  obvious  reasons,  let  my  description  of  him  rest  at 
that. 

When  writing  of  clubs  I  should  have  mentioned  the 
Cooking  Club,  which  is  one  of  the  most  unique  little  clubs 
of  the  country.  The  fifteen  members  of  this  club  are 
the  gourmets  of  Colorado  Springs — not  merely  passive 
gourmets  who  like  to  have  good  things  set  before  them, 
but  active  ones  who  know  how  to  prepare  good  things 
as  well  as  eat  them.  Every  little  while,  throughout  the 
season,  the  Cooking  Club  gives  dinners,  to  which  each 
member  may  invite  a  guest  or  two.  Each  takes  his  turn 

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in  acting  as  host,  his  duties  upon  this  occasion  being  to 
draw  up  the  menu,  supply  materials,  appoint  members 
to  prepare  certain  courses,  and,  wearing  the  full  regalia 
of  a  chef,  superintend  the  preparation  of  the  meal,  which 
is  cooked  entirely  by  men  belonging  to  the  club.  Wine 
is  not  served  at  Cooking  Club  dinners,  the  official  bever 
age  being  the  club  Rum  Brew,  which  has  a  considerable 
local  reputation,  and  is  everywhere  pronounced  adequate. 
Not  a  few  of  the  members  learned  to  cook  in  the  course 
of  prospecting  tours  in  the  mountains,  and  the  Easterner 
who,  with  this  fact  in  mind,  attends  a  Cooking  Club  din 
ner  is  led  to  revise,  immediately,  certain  preconceived 
ideas  of  the  hard  life  of  the  prospector.  No  man  has 
a  hard  life  who  can  cook  himself  such  dishes.  In 
deed,  one  is  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  Colorado  is 
full  of  undiscovered  mines,  which  would  have  been  un 
covered  long  ago,  were  it  not  that  prospectors  go  up 
into  the  mountains  for  the  primary  purpose  of  cooking 
themselves  the  most  delightful  meals,  and  that  mining  is 
— as  indeed  it  should  be — a  mere  side  issue.  For  myself, 
while  I  have  no  taste  for  the  hardy  life  of  the  moun 
taineer,  I  would  gladly  become  a  prospector,  even  if  it 
were  guaranteed  in  advance  that  I  should  discover  noth 
ing,  providing  that  Eugene  P.  Shove  would  go  along 
with  me  and  make  the  biscuits. 

Aside  from  its  clubs  Colorado  Springs  has  all  the 
other  things  which  go  to  the  making  of  a  pleasant  city. 
The  Burns  Theater  is  a  model  of  what  a  theater  should 
be.  The  Antlers  Hotel  would  do  credit  to  the  shores 

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of  Lake  Lucerne.  Where  the  "antlers"  part  of  it  comes 
in,  I  am  unable  to  say,  but  as  nothing  else  was  lacking, 
from  the  kitchen,  down  stairs,  to  Pike's  Peak  looming 
up  in  the  back  yard,  I  have  no  complaint  to  make. 

I  suppose  that  every  one  who  has  heard  of  Colorado 
Springs  at  all,  associates  it  with  the  famous  Garden  of 
the  Gods. 

Before  I  started  on  my  travels  I  was  aware  of  the 
fact  that  the  two  great  natural  wonders  of  the  East  are 
Niagara  Falls  and  the  insular  New  Yorker.  I  knew  that 
the  great,  gorgeous,  glittering  galaxy  of  American  won 
ders  was,  however,  in  the  West,  but  the  location  and 
character  of  them  was  somewhat  vague  in  my  mind. 
I  knew,  of  course,  that  Pike's  Peak  was  a  large  moun 
tain.  I  knew  that  the  giant  redwoods  were  in  Cali 
fornia.  But  for  the  rest,  I  had  the  Grand  Canon,  the 
Royal  Gorge,  and  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  associated  in 
my  mind  together  as  rival  attractions.  I  do  not  know 
why  this  was  so,  excepting  that  I  had  been  living  on 
Manhattan  Island,  where  information  is  notoriously 
scarce. 

No\v,  though  I  saw  the  Royal  Gorge,  though  I  rode 
through  it  in  the  cab  of  a  locomotive,  with  my  hair 
standing  on  end,  and  though  I  found  it  "as  advertised," 
I  have  no  idea  of  trying  to  describe  it,  more  than  to  say 
that  it  is  a  great  cleft  in  the  pink  rocks  through  which 
run  a  river  and  a  railroad,  and  that  howr  the  latter 
managed  to  keep  out  of  the  former  was  a  constant  source 
of  wonder  to  me. 

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COLORADO  SPRINGS 

As  for  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Colorado,  it  affects 
those  who  behold  it  with  a  kind  of  literary  asthma. 
They  desire  to  describe  it;  some  try,  passionately;  but 
they  only  wheeze  and  look  as  though  they  might  ex 
plode.  Since  it  is  generally  admitted  that  no  one  who 
has  seen  it  can  describe  it,  the  task  would  manifestly  de 
volve  upon  some  one  who  has  not  seen  it,  and  that  re 
quirement  is  filled  by  me.  I  have  not  seen  it.  I  am 
not  impressed  by  it  at  all.  I  am  able  to  speak  of  it 
with  coherence  and  restraint.  But  even  that  I  shall  not 
do. 

With  the  Garden  of  the  Gods  it  is  different.  The 
place  irritated  me.  For  if  ever  any  spot  was  outrage 
ously  overnamed,  it  is  that  one.  As  a  little  park  in  the 
Catskills  it  might  be  all  well  enough,  but  as  a  natural 
wonder  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  with  Pike's  Peak  hang 
ing  overhead,  it  is  a  pale  pink  joke.  If  I  had  my  way  I 
should  take  its  wonder-name  away  from  it,  for  the  name 
is  too  fine  to  waste,  and  a  thousand  spots  in  Colorado  are 
more  worthy  of  it. 

The  entrance  to  the  place,  between  two  tall,  rose- 
colored  sandstone  rocks  may,  perhaps,  be  called  impos 
ing;  the  rest  of  it  might  better  be  described  as  imposi 
tion.  Guides  will  take  you  through,  and  they  will  do 
their  utmost,  as  guides  always  do,  to  make  you  imagine 
that  you  are  really  seeing  something.  They  will  point 
out  inane  formations  in  the  sandstone  rock,  and  will 
attempt  to  make  you  see  that  these  are  "pictures."  They 
will  show  you  the  Kissing  Camels,  the  Bear  and  Seal, 

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the  Buffalo,  the  Bride  and  Groom,  the  Preacher,  the 
Scotsman,  Punch  and  Judy,  the  Washerwoman,  and 
other  rock  forms,  sculptured  by  Nature  into  shapes  more 
or  less  suggesting  the  various  objects  mentioned.  But 
what  if  they  do?  To  look  at  such  accidentals  is  a  pas 
time  about  as  intelligent  as  looking  for  pictures  in  the 
moon,  or  in  the  patterns  of  the  paper  on  your  wall.  As 
nearly  as  Nature  can  be  altogether  silly  she  has  been 
silly  here,  and  I  think  that  only  silly  people  will  succeed 
in  finding  fascination  in  the  place — the  more  so  since 
Colorado  Springs  is  a  prohibition  town. 

The  story  of  prohibition  there  is  curious.  In  18/0, 
N.  C.  Meeker,  Agricultural  Editor  of  the  New  York 
"Tribune,"  under  Horace  Greeley,  started  a  colony  in 
Colorado,  bringing  a  number  of  settlers  from  the  East, 
and  naming  the  place  Greeley.  With  a  view  to  elimi 
nating  the  roughness  characteristic  of  frontier  towns 
in  those  days,  Mr.  Meeker  made  Greeley  a  prohibition 
colony. 

When,  a  year  after,  General  William  J.  Palmer  and 
his  associates  started  to  build  the  Denver  &  Rio  Grande 
Railroad  from  Denver  to  Colorado  Springs,  a  land  com 
pany  was  formed,  subsidiary  to  the  railway  project, 
and  desert  property  was  purchased  on  the  present  site 
of  the  Springs.  The  town  was  then  laid  out  and  the 
land  retailed  to  individuals  of  "good  moral  character 
and  strict,  temperate  habits." 

In  each  deed  given  by  the  land  company  there  was  in- 

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corporated  an  anti-liquor  clause,  whereby,  in  the  event 
of  intoxicating  liquors  being  "manufactured,  sold  or 
otherwise  disposed  of  in  any  place  of  public  resort  on 
the  premises/'  the  deed  should  become  void  and  the 
property  revert  to  the  company.  Shortly  after  the  for 
mation  of  the  colony  the  validity  of  this  clause  was 
tested.  The  suit  was  finally  carried  to  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court,  where  the  rights  of  the  company,  under 
the  prohibition  clause,  were  upheld. 

General  Palmer,  later,  in  discussing  the  history  of 
Colorado  Springs,  explained  that  the  prohibitory  clause 
was  not  inserted  in  the  deeds  for  moral  reasons,  but 
that  "the  aim  was  intensely  practical — to  create  a  habi 
table  and  successful  town/' 

The  General  and  his  associates  had  had  ample  ex 
perience  of  new  western  railroad  towns,  and  wished  to 
eliminate  the  disagreeable  features  of  such  towns  from 
Colorado  Springs.  Even  then,  though  the  prohibition 
movement  had  not  been  fairly  launched  in  this  country 
these  practical  men  recognize  the  fact  that  Meeker  had 
recognized;  namely  that  with  saloons,  dance  halls  and 
gambling  places,  gunfighting  and  lynchings  went  hand 
in  hand. 

It  is  recorded  that  the  restriction  seemed  to  work 
against  the  town  at  first,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  such 
growth  as  came  was  substantial,  and  Colorado  Springs 
attracted  a  better  class  of  settlers  than  the  wide  open 
towns  nearby.  The  wisdom  of  this  arrangement  is 

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amply  proven,  to-day,  by  a  comparison  of  Colorado 
Springs  with  the  neighboring  town  of  Colorado  City, 
which  has  not  had  prohibition. 

Even  before  Colorado  Springs  existed,  General  Pal 
mer  had  fallen  in  love  with  the  place  and  determined 
that  he  would  some  day  have  a  home  at  the  foot  of  the 
mountains  in  that  neighborhood.  In  the  early  seventies 
he  purchased  a  superb  canon  a  few  miles  west  of  the 
city,  and  the  Tudor  Castle  which  he  built  there,  and 
which  he  named  Glen  Eyrie,  because  of  the  eagles'  nests 
on  the  walls  of  his  canon,  remains  to-day  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  houses  on  this  continent. 

Every  detail  of  the  house  as  it  stands,  and  every  item 
in  the  history  of  its  construction  expresses  the  force  and 
originality  which  were  such  strong  attributes  of  its  late 
proprietor. 

The  General  was  an  engineer.  In  the  Civil  War  he 
was  colonel  of  the  I5th  Pennsylvania  Cavalry,  and  was 
breveted  a  general.  After  the  war  he  went  into  the 
West  and  became  a  railroad  builder.  Evidently  he  was 
one  of  those  men,  typical  of  his  time,  who  seem  to  have 
had  a  craving  to  condense  into  one  lifetime  the  experi 
ences  and  achievements  of  several.  He  was,  so  to 
speak,  his  own  ancestor  and  his  own  descendant;  there 
were,  in  effect,  three  generations  of  him:  soldier,  rail 
road  builder,  and  landed  baron.  In  his  castle  at  Glen 
Eyrie  one  senses  very  strongly  this  baronial  quality. 
Clearly  the  General  could  not  be  content  with  a  mere 
modern  house.  He  wanted  a  castle,  and  above  all,  an 

430 


COLORADO  SPRINGS 

old  castle.  And,  as  Colorado  is  peculiarly  free  of  old 
castles,  he  had  to  build  one  for  himself.  That  is 
what  he  did,  and  the  superb  initiative  of  the  man  is 
again  reflected  in  the  means  he  used.  The  house  must 
be  of  old  lichen-covered  stone,  but,  being  already  past 
middle  age,  the  General  could  not  wait  on  Nature. 
Therefore  he  caused  the  whole  region  to  be  scoured  for 
flat,  weathered  stones  which  could  be  cut  for  his  pur 
pose.  These  he  transported  to  his  glen,  where  they  were 
carefully  cut  and  set  in  place,  so  that  the  moment  the 
new  wall  was  up  it  was  an  old  wall.  Finding  the  flat 
stones  was  easy,  however,  compared  with  rinding  those 
presenting  a  natural  right  angle,  for  the  corners  of  the 
house.  Nevertheless,  all  were  ultimately  discovered 
and  laid,  and  the  desired  result  was  attained.  After 
the  house  was  done  the  General  thought  the  roof  lacked 
just  the  proper  note  of  color,  so  he  caused  it  to  be  torn 
off,  and  replaced  with  tiles  from  an  old  church  in  Eng 
land. 

Perhaps  the  most  splendid  thing  about  the  place  is 
an  enormous  hall,  paneled  in  oak,  with  a  gallery  and 
a  beamed  barrel  ceiling,  but  there  are  other  features 
which  make  the  house  unusual.  On  the  roof  is  a  great 
Krupp  bell,  which  can  be  heard  for  miles,  and  which 
was  used  to  call  the  General's  guests  home  for  meals. 
There  is  a  power  plant,  a  swimming  pool,  a  complicated 
device  for  recording  meteorological  conditions  in  the 
mountains.  And  of  course  there  are  fireplaces  in  which 
great  logs  were  burned;  yet  there  are  no  chimneys  on 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  house.  The  General  did  not  want  chimneys  issuing 
smoke  into  his  canon,  so  he  simply  did  not  have  them. 
Instead,  he  constructed  a  tunnel  which  runs  up  the  moun 
tainside  behind  the  house  and  takes  care  of  the  smoke, 
emitting  it  at  an  unseen  point,  far  above. 

Meanwhile  the  General  played  Santa  Claus  to  Colo 
rado  Springs,  giving  her  parks  and  boulevards.  One 
day,  while  riding  on  his  place,  he  was  thrown  from  his 
horse  and  a  vertebra  was  fractured,  with  the  result  that 
he  was  permanently  prostrated.  After  that  he  lay  for 
some  time  like  a  wounded  eagle  in  his  eyrie,  his  mind 
as  active  as  ever.  He  was  still  living  in  1907,  when 
the  time  for  the  annual  reunion  of  his  old  regiment  came 
around.  Unable  to  go  East,  he  invited  the  remaining 
veterans  to  come  to  him  by  special  train,  as  his  guests. 
So  they  came — the  remnants  of  that  old  cavalry  regi 
ment,  and  passed  in  review,  for  the  last  time,  before 
their  Colonel,  lying  helpless  with  a  broken  neck. 

In  its  mountain  setting,  with  the  pink  sandstone  cliffs 
rising  abruptly  behind  it,  this  castle  of  the  General's 
is  one  of  the  most  dramatic  homes  I  have  ever  seen. 
There  is  a  superb  austerity  about  it,  which  makes  it 
very  different  from  the  large  homes  of  Broadmoor,  at 
the  other  side  of  Colorado  Springs.  As  I  have  already 
mentioned,  one  of  these  is  a  replica  of  the  Grand  Tri 
anon;  others  are  Elizabethan  and  Tudor,  and  many  of 
them  are  very  fine,  but  the  house  of  houses  at  Colorado 
Springs  is  "El  Pomar,"  the  residence  of  the  late  Ashton 
H.  Potter.  I  do  not  know  a  house  in  the  United  States 

432 


On  the  road  to  Cripple  Creek — We  were  always  turning,  always   turning 
upward 


COLORADO  SPRINGS 

which  fits  its  setting  better  than  this  one,  or  which  is  a 
more  perfect  thing  from  every  point  of  view.  It  is  a 
one-story  building  of  Spanish  architecture — a  style 
which,  to  my  mind,  fits  better  than  any  other,  the  sort  of 
landscape  in  which  plains  and  mountains  meet.  Houses 
as  elaborate  as  the  Grand  Trianon,  always  seem  to  me  to 
lend  themselves  best  to  a  rather  formal,  park-like  country 
which  is  flat,  or  nearly  so;  while  Elizabethan  and 
adapted  Tudor  houses  of  the  kind  one  sees  at  Broad- 
moor,  seem  to  cry  out  for  English  lawns,  and  great  lush- 
growing  trees  to  soften  the  hard  lines  of  roof  and  gable. 
Such  houses  may  be  set  in  rolling  country  with  good 
effect,  but  in  the  face  of  the  vast  mountain  range  which 
dominates  this  neighborhood,  the  most  elaborate  archi 
tecture  is  so  completely  dwarfed  as  to  seem  almost  ridic 
ulous.  Architecture  cannot  compete  with  the  Rocky 
Mountains ;  the  best  thing  it  can  do  is  to  submit  to  them : 
to  blend  itself  into  the  picture  as  unostentatiously  as  pos 
sible.  And  that  is  what  "El  Pomar"  does. 


433 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 
CRIPPLE  CREEK 

ONE  day,  during  our  stay  at  Colorado  Springs, 
we  were  invited  to  take  a  trip  to  Cripple  Creek. 
Driving  to  the  station  a  friend,  a  resident  of 
the  Springs,  pointed  out  to  me  a  little  clay  hillock,  beside 
the  road. 

"That,"  he  said,  "is  what  we  call  Mount  Washing 
ton." 

"I  don't  see  the  resemblance,"  I  remarked. 

"Well,"  he  explained,  "the  top  of  that  little  hump  has 
an  elevation  of  about  six  thousand  three  hundred  feet, 
which  is  exactly  the  height  of  Mount  Washington. 
You  see  our  mountains,  out  here,  begin  where  yours,  in 
the  East,  leave  off." 

Presently,  on  the  little  train,  bound  for  Cripple  Creek, 
the  fact  was  further  demonstrated.  I  had  never  imag 
ined  that  anything  less  than  a  cog-road  could  ascend  a 
grade  so  steep.  All  the  way  the  grade  persisted.  Never 
had  I  seen  such  a  railroad,  either  for  steepness  or  for 
sinuosity.  The  train  crawled  slowly  along  ledges  cut 
into  the  mountain-sides,  now  burrowing  through  an  ob 
struction,  now  creeping  from  one  mountain  to  another 
on  a  spindly  bridge  of  the  most  shocking  height,  below 
which  a  wild  torrent  dashed  through  a  rocky  canon; 

434 


CRIPPLE  CREEK 

now  slipping  out  upon  a  sky-high  terrace  commanding  a 
view  of  hundreds  of  square  miles  of  plains,  now  wind 
ing  its  way  gingerly  about  dizzy  cliffs  which  seemed  to 
lean  out  over  chasms,  into  which  one  looked  with  admir 
ing  terror ;  now  coming  out  upon  the  other  side,  the  main 
chain  of  the  Rockies  was  revealed  a  hundred  miles  to  the 
westward,  glittering  superbly  with  eternal  ice  and  snow. 
It  is  an  unbelievable  railroad — the  Cripple  Creek  Short 
Line.  It  travels  fifty  miles  to  make  what,  in  a  straight 
line,  would  be  eighteen,  and  if  there  is,  on  the  entire  sys 
tem,  a  hundred  yards  of  track  without  a  turn,  I  did  not 
see  the  place.  We  were  always  turning;  always  turn 
ing  upward.  We  would  go  into  a  tunnel  and  presently 
emerge  at  a  point  which  seemed  to  be  directly  above  the 
place  where  we  had  entered;  and  at  times  our  windings, 
our  doublings  back,  our  writhings,  were  conducted  in 
so  limited  an  area  that  I  began  to  fear  our  train  would 
get  tied  in  a  knot  and  be  unable  to  proceed. 

However,  we  did  get  to  Cripple  Creek,  and  for  all  its 
mountain  setting,  and  all  the  three  hundred  millions  of 
gold  that  it  has  yielded  in  the  last  twenty  years  or  so, 
it  is  one  of  the  most  depressing  places  in  the  world. 
Its  buildings  run  from  shabbiness  to  downright  ruin; 
its  streets  are  ill  paved,  and  its  outlying  districts  are  a 
horror  of  smokestacks,  ore-dumps,  shaft-houses,  reduc 
tion-plants,  gallows-frames  and  squalid  shanties,  situ 
ated  in  the  mud.  It  seemed  to  me  that  Cripple  Creek 
must  be  the  most  awful  looking  little  city  in  the  world, 
but  I  was  informed  that,  as  mining  camps  go,  it  is  un- 

435 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

usually  presentable,  and  later  I  learned  for  myself  that 
that  is  true. 

Cripple  Creek  is  not  only  above  the  timber-line;  it  is 
above  the  cat-line.  I  mean  this  literally.  Domestic 
cats  cannot  live  there.  And  many  human  beings  are  af 
fected  by  the  altitude.  I  was.  I  had  a  headache;  my 
breath  was  short,  and  upon  the  least  exertion  my  heart 
did  flip-flops.  Therefore  I  did  not  circulate  about  the 
town  excepting  within  a  radius  of  a  few  blocks  of  the 
station.  That,  however,  was  enough. 

After  walking  up  the  main  street  a  little  way,  I  turned 
off  into  a  side  street  lined  with  flimsy  buildings,  half  of 
them  tumbledown  and  abandoned.  Turning  into  an 
other  street  I  came  upon  a  long  row  of  tiny  one  story 
houses,  crowded  close  together  in  a  block.  Some  of 
them  were  empty,  but  others  showed  signs  of  being  oc 
cupied.  And  instead  of  a  number,  the  door  of  each  one 
bore  a  name,  "Clara,"  "Louise,"  "Lina,"  and  so  on, 
down  the  block.  For  a  time  there  was  not  a  soul  in 
sight  as  I  walked  slowly  down  that  line  of  box-stall 
houses.  Then,  far  ahead,  I  saw  a  woman  come  out  of 
a  doorway.  She  wore  a  loose  pink  wrapper  and  carried 
a  pitcher  in  her  hand.  I  watched  her  cross  the  street 
and  go  into  a  dingy  building.  Then  the  street  was 
empty  again.  I  walked  on  slowly.  As  I  passed  one 
doorway  it  opened  suddenly  and  a  man  came  out — a 
shabby  man  with  a  drooping  mustache.  He  did  not 
look  at  me  as  he  passed.  The  window-shade  of  the  crib 
from  which  he  had  come  went  up  as  I  moved  by.  I 

436 


CRIPPLE  CREEK 

looked  at  the  window,  and  as  I  did  so,  the  curtains 
parted  and  the  face  of  a  negress  was  pressed  against  the 
pane,  grinning  at  me  with  a  knowing,  sickening  grin. 

I  passed  on.  From  another  window  a  white  woman 
with  very  black  hair  and  eyes,  and  cheeks  of  a  light 
orchid-shade,  showed  her  gold  teeth  in  a  mirthless  auto 
matic  smile,  and  added  the  allurement  of  an  ice-cold 
wink. 

The  door  of  the  crib  at  the  corner  stood  open,  and 
just  before  I  reached  it  a  woman  stepped  out  and  sur 
veyed  me  as  I  approached.  She  wore  a  white  linen  skirt 
and  a  middy  blouse,  attire  grotesquely  juvenile  for  one  of 
her  years.  Her  hair,  of  which  she  had  but  a  moderate 
amount,  was  light  brown  and  stringy,  and  she  wore  gold- 
rimmed  spectacles.  She  did  not  look  depraved  but,  upon 
the  contrary  resembled  a  highly  respectable,  if  homely, 
German  cook  I  once  employed.  As  I  passed  her  win 
dow  I  saw  hanging  there  a  glass  sign,  across  which,  in 
gold  letters,  was  the  title,  "Madam  Leo." 

"Madam  Leo/'  she  said  to  me,  nodding  and  pointing 
at  her  chest.  "That's  me.  Leo,  the  lion,  eh?"  She 
laughed  foolishly. 

I  paused  and  made  some  casual  inquiry  "concerning 
her  prosperity. 

"Things  is  dull  now  in  Cripple  Creek,"  she  said. 
"There  ain't  much  business  any  more.  I  wish  they  'd 
start  a  white  man's  club  or  a  dance  hall  across  the 
street.  Then  Cripple  Creek  would  be  booming." 

I  think  I  remarked,  in  reply,  that  things  did  look 

437 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

rather  dull.  In  the  meantime  I  glanced  in  at  her  little 
room.  There  was  a  chair  or  two,  a  cheap  oak  dresser, 
and  an  iron  bed.  The  room  looked  neat. 

"Ain't  I  got  a  nice  clean  place?"  suggested  Madam 
Leo.  Then  as  I  assented,  she  pointed  to  a  calendar 
which  hung  upon  the  wall.  At  the  top  of  it  was  a  colored 
print  from  some  French  painting,  showing  a  Cupid  kiss 
ing  a  filmily  draped  Psyche. 

'That 's  me/'  said  Madam  Leo.  "That 's  me  when 
I  was  a  young  girl !"  Again  she  loosed  her  laugh. 

I  started  to  move  on. 

"Where  are  you  from?"  she  asked. 

"I  came  up  from  Colorado  Springs/'  I  said. 

"Well,"  she  returned,  "when  you  go  back  send  some 
nice  boys  up  here.  Tell  them  to  see  Madam  Leo.  Tell 
them  a  middle-aged  woman  with  spectacles.  I  'm 
known  here.  I  been  here  four  years.  Oh,  things  ain't 
so  bad.  I  manage  to  make  two  or  three  dollars  a  day." 

As  I  passed  to  leeward  of  her  on  the  narrow  walk  I 
got  the  smell  of  a  strong,  brutal  perfume. 

"Have  you  got  to  be  going?"  she  asked. 

"Yes,"  I  answered.     "I  must  go  to  the  train." 

"Well,  then — so  long,"  she  said. 

"So  long." 

"Don't  forget  Madam  Leo,"  she  admonished,  giving 
utterance,  again,  to  her  strident,  feeble-minded  laugh. 

"I  won't,"  I  promised. 

And  I  never,  never  shall. 


438 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 
THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

1  THINK  it  was  in  Kansas  City  that  I  first  became 
conscious  of  the  fact  that,  without  my  knowing  it, 
my  mind  had  made,  in  advance,  imaginary  pic 
tures  of  certain  sections  of  the  country,  and  that,  in 
almost  every  instance,  these  pictures  were  remarkable 
for  their  untruthfulness.  Kansas  City  itself  surprised 
me  with  its  hills,  for  I  had  been  thinking  of  it  in  con 
nection  with  the  prairies.  With  Denver  it  was  the 
other  way  about.  Thinking  of  Denver  as  a  mountain 
city,  instead  of  a  city  near  the  mountains,  I  expected 
hills,  but  did  not  find  them.  And  when  I  crossed  the 
Rockies,  they  too  afforded  a  surprise,  not  because  of  their 
height,  but  because  of  their  width.  Evidently  I  must 
have  had  some  vague  idea  that  a  train,  traveling  west 
from  Denver,  would  climb  very  definitely  up  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  cross  the  Great  Divide,  and  proceed  very 
definitely  down  again,  upon  the  other  side,  whither  a  sort 
of  long,  sloping  plain  would  lead  to  California.  Denver 
itself  I  thought  of  as  being  placed  further  west  upon  the 
continent  than  is,  in  reality,  the  case.  I  did  not  realize 
at  all  that  the  city  is,  in  fact,  only  a  few  hundred  miles 
west  of  the  half-way  point  on  an  imaginary  line  drawn 

439 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

from  coast  to  coast;  nor  was  I  aware  that,  instead  of 
being  for  the  most  part  sloping  plain,  the  thousand  miles 
that  intervenes  between  Denver  and  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
is  made  up  of  series  after  series  of  mountain  ranges  and 
valleys,  their  successive  crests  and  hollows  following 
one  another  like  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

In  short,  I  had  imagined  that  the  Rockies  were  the 
whole  show.  I  had  not  the  faintest  recollection  of  the 
Cordilleran  System  (of  which  the  Rockies  and  all  these 
other  ranges  are  but  a  part),  while  as  for  the  Sierra 
Nevadas,  I  remembered  them  only  when  I  came  to  them 
and  then  much  as  one  will  recall  a  slight  acquaintance 
who  has  been  in  jail  for  many  years. 

Are  you  shocked  by  my  ignorance — or  my  confession 
of  it  ?  Then  let  me  ask  you  if  you  know  that  the  Uintah 
Mountain  Range,  in  Utah,  is  the  only  range  in  the 
entire  country  which  runs  east  and  west?  And  have 
you  ever  heard  of  the  Pequop  Mountains,  or  the  Cedar 
Mountains,  or  the  Santa  Roasas,  or  the  Egans,  or  the 
Humboldts,  or  the  Washoes,  or  the  Gosiutes,  or  the 
Toyales,  or  the  Toquimas,  or  the  Hot  Creek  Mountains  ? 
And  did  you  know  that  in  California  as  well  as 
in  New  Hampshire  there  are  the  White  Mountains? 
And  what  do  you  know  of  the  Wahsatch  and  Oquirrh 
Ranges  ? 

Not  wishing  to  keep  the  class  in  geography  after 
school,  I  shall  not  tell  you  about  all  these  mountains,  but 
will  satisfy  myself  with  the  statement  that,  in  an  amphi 
theater  formed  between  the  two  last  mentioned  ranges, 

440 


THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

at  the  head  of  a  broad,  irrigated  valley,  is  situated  Salt 
Lake  City. 

The  very  name  of  Salt  Lake  City  had  a  flat  sound  in 
my  ears ;  and  in  that  mental  album  of  imaginary  photo 
graphs  of  cities,  to  which  I  have  referred,  I  saw  the 
Mormon  capital  as  on  a  sandy  plain,  with  the  Great 
Salt  Lake  on  one  side  and  the  Great  Salt  Desert  on  the 
other.  Therefore,  upon  arriving,  I  was  surprised  again, 
for  the  lake  is  not  visible  at  all,  being  a  dozen  miles  dis 
tant,  and  the  desert  is  removed  still  farther,  while  in 
stead  of  sandy  plains  the  mountains  rise  abruptly  on 
three  sides  of  the  city,  and  on  the  fourth  is  the  sweet 
valley,  covered  with  rich  farms  and  orchards,  and  dotted 
here  and  there  with  minor  Mormon  settlements. 

Like  Mark  Twain,  who  visited  Salt  Lake  many  years 
ago,  before  the  railroad  went  there,  I  managed  to  forget 
the  lake  entirely  after  I  had  been  there  for  a  little  while. 
I  made  no  excursion  to  Saltair  Beach,  the  playground 
of  the  neighborhood,  and  only  saw  the  lake  when  our 
train  crossed  a  portion  of  it  after  leaving  the  city. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  great  pavilion  at  Saltair 
Beach,  of  which  every  one  has  seen  pictures,  is  a  Mor 
mon  property,  but  it  well  may  be,  for  the  Mormons  have 
never  been  a  narrow-minded  sect  with  regard  to  decent 
gaieties.  They  approve  of  dancing,  and  the  ragtime 
craze  has  reached  them,  for,  as  I  was  walking  past  the 
Lion  House,  one  evening,  I  heard  the  music  and  saw  a 
lot  of  young  people  "trotting"  gaily,  in  the  place  where 
formerly  resided  most  of  the  twenty  odd  known  wives 

441 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

of  the  late  Brigham  Young.  Later  a  Mormon  told  me 
that  dances  are  held  in  Mormon  meeting-houses  and  that 
they  are  always  opened  with  prayer. 

Also  in  the  cafe  of  the  Hotel  Utah  there  was  dancing 
every  night,  and  when  the  members  of  the  "Honeymoon 
Express"  Company  put  in  an  appearance  there  one  night, 
we  might  have  been  on  Broadway.  The  hotel,  I  was 
informed,  is  owned  by  Mormons;  it  is  an  excellent 
establishment.  They  do  not  stare  at  you  as  though  they 
thought  you  an  eccentric  if  you  ask  for  tea  at  five 
o'clock,  but  bring  it  to  you  in  the  most  approved  fashion, 
with  a  kettle  and  a  lamp,  and  the  neatest  silver  tea  serv 
ice  I  have  ever  seen  in  an  American  hotel.  But  that  is 
by  the  way,  for  I  was  speaking  of  the  frivolities  of  Mor- 
mondom,  and  afternoon  tea  is,  with  me  at  least,  a  seri 
ous  matter. 

Salt  Lake  City  was,  until  a  few  years  ago,  a  "wide 
open  town."  The  "stockade"  was  famous  among  the 
red-light  institutions  of  the  country.  But  that  is  gone, 
having  been  washed  away  by  our  national  "wave 
of  reform,"  and  the  town  has  now  a  rather  orderly  ap 
pearance,  although  it  is  not  without  its  night  cafes, 
one  of  them  being  the  inevitable  "Maxim's,"  without 
which,  it  would  appear,  no  American  city  is  now  com 
plete. 

One  of  the  first  things  the  Mormons  did,  on  establish 
ing  their  city,  was  to  build  an  amusement  hall,  and  as 
long  as  fifty  years  ago,  this  was  superseded  by  the  Salt 
Lake  Theatre,  a  picturesque  old  playhouse  which  is  still 

442 


THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

standing,  and  which  looks,  inside  and  out,  like  an  old 
wartime  wood-cut  of  Ford's  Theatre  in  Washington. 
Even  before  the  railroads  came  the  best  actors  and 
actresses  in  the  country  played  in  this  theater,  drawn 
there  by  the  strong  financial  inducements  which  the 
Mormons  offered,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  many 
stage  favorites  of  to-day  made  their  first  appearances  in 
this  playhouse.  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  Edwin  Milton 
Royle  made  his  debut  as  an  actor  there,  and  both  Maude 
Adams  and  Ada  Dwyer  were  born  in  Salt  Lake  City, 
and  appeared  upon  the  stage  for  the  first  time  at  the 
Salt  Lake  Theatre.  Yes,  it  is  an  interesting  and  his 
toric  playhouse,  and  I  hope  that  when  it  burns  up,  as 
I  have  no  doubt  it  ultimately  will,  no  audience  will 
be  present,  for  I  think  that  it  will  go  like  tinder.  And 
although  I  still  bemoan  the  money  which  I  spent  to  see 
there,  a  maudlin  entertainment  called  'The  Honeymoon 
Express/'  direct  from  that  home  of  banal  vulgarities, 
the  New  York  Winter  Garden,  I  cannot  quite  bring 
myself  to  hope  that  when  the  Salt  Lake  Theatre  burns, 
the  man  who  wrote  "The  Honeymoon  Express,"  the 
manager  who  produced  it,  and  the  company  which 
played  it,  will  be  rehearsing  there.  For  all  their  sins, 
I  should  not  like  to  see  them  burned,  though  as  to  being 
roasted — well,  that  is  a  different  thing. 

Whatever  may  be  one's  opinion  of  the  matrimonial 
industry  of  Brigham  Young,  the  visitor  to  Salt  Lake 
City  will  not  dispute  that  the  late  leader  of  the  Mormons 
knew,  far  better  than  most  men  of  his  day,  how  a  town 

443 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

should  be  laid  out.  The  blocks  of  Salt  Lake  City  are 
rectangular;  the  lots  are  large,  the  streets  wide  and  ad 
mirably  paved  with  asphalt,  almost  all  the  houses  are 
low,  and  stand  in  their  own  green  grounds,  and  perhaps 
the  most  characteristic  note  of  all  is  given  by  the  poplars 
and  box  elders  which  grow  everywhere,  not  only  in  the 
city,  but  throughout  the  valley. 

Besides  my  preconceptions  as  to  the  city,  I  arrived 
in  Salt  Lake  City  with  certain  preconceptions  as  to  Mor 
mons.  I  expected  them  to  be  radically  different,  some 
how,  from  all  other  people  I  had  met.  I  anticipated 
finding  them  deceitful  and  evasive :  furtive  people,  wan 
dering  in  devious  ways  and  disappearing  into  mysterious 
houses,  at  dead  of  night.  I  wanted  to  see  them,  I  wanted 
to  talk  with  them,  but  I  wondered,  nervously,  whether 
one  might  speak  to  them  about  themselves  and  their  re 
ligion,  and  more  especially,  whether  one  might  use  the 
words  "Mormon"  and  "polygamy"  without  giving  of 
fense. 

It  was  not  without  misgivings,  therefore,  that  my 
companion  and  I  went  to  keep  an  appointment  with 
Joseph  F.  Smith,  head  of  the  Mormon  Church — or,  to 
give  it  its  official  title,  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of 
Latter  Day  Saints.  We  found  the  President,  with  sev 
eral  high  officials  of  the  church,  in  his  office  at  the  Lion 
House — the  large  adobe  building  in  which,  as  I  have 
said,  formerly  resided  the  rank  and  file  of  Brigham 
Young's  wives ;  although  Amelia  lived  by  herself,  in  the 
so  called  "Amelia  Palace/'  across  the  street. 

444 


THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

Mr.  Smith  is  a  tall,  dignified  man  who  comes  far  from 
looking  his  full  seventy-six  years.  The  nose  upon 
which  he  wears  his  gold  rimmed  spectacles  is  the  domi 
nant  feature  of  his  face,  being  one  of  those  great,  strong, 
mountainous,  indomitable  noses.  His  eyes  are  dark, 
large  and  keen,  and  he  wears  a  flowing  gray  beard  and 
dresses  in  a  black  frock-coat.  He  and  the  men  around 
him  looked  like  a  group  of  strong,  prosperous,  dog 
matically  religious  New  Englanders,  such  as  one  might 
find  at  a  directors'  meeting  in  the  back  room  of  some 
very  solid  old  bank  in  Maine  or  Massachusetts.  Clearly 
they  were  executives  and  men  of  wealth.  As  for  re 
ligion,  had  I  not  known  that  they  were  Mormons,  I 
should  have  judged  them  to  be  either  Baptists,  Meth 
odists  or  Presbyterians. 

The  occasion  did  not  prove  to  be  a  gay  one.  I  tried 
to  explain  to  the  Mormons  that  I  was  writing  impres 
sions  of  my  travels  and  that  I  had  desired  to  meet  them 
because,  in  Salt  Lake  City,  the  Mormons  seemed  to  sup 
ply  the  greatest  interest. 

But  even  after  I  had  explained  my  mission,  a  frigid 
air  prevailed,  and  I  felt  that  here,  at  least,  I  would  get 
but  scant  material.  Their  attitude  perplexed  me.  I 
could  not  believe  they  were  embarrassed,  although  I 
knew  that  I  was. 

Then  presently  the  mystery  was  cleared  up,  for  Presi 
dent  Smith  launched  out  upon  a  statement  of  his  opinion 
regarding  "Collier's  Weekly" — the  paper  in  which  many 
of  these  chapters  first  appeared — and  I  became  suddenly 

445 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

and  painfully  aware  that  I  was  being  mistaken  for  a 
muck-raker. 

The  President's  opinion  of  "Collier's"  was  more 
frank  than  flattering,  and  though  one  or  two  of  the 
other  Mormons,  who  seemed  to  understand  our  aims, 
tried  to  smooth  matters  over  in  the  interests  of  har 
mony,  he  would  not  be  mollified,  but  insisted  vigorously 
that  "Collier's"  had  printed  outrageous  lies  about  him. 
This  was  all  news  to  me,  for,  as  it  happened,  I  had  not 
read  the  articles  to  which  he  referred,  and  for  which, 
as  a  representative  of  "Collier's,"  I  was  now,  apparently, 
being  held  responsible.  I  explained  that  to  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  Church,  whereupon  he  simmered  down 
somewhat,  but  I  think  he  still  regarded  my  companion 
and  me  with  suspicion,  and  was  glad  to  see  us  go. 

Thus  did  we  suffer  for  the  sins  of  Sarah  Comstock. 

It  may  not  seem  necessary  to  add  that  the  subject  of 
polygamy  was  not  mentioned  in  that  conversation. 

In  thinking  over  our  encounter  with  these  leading 
Mormons  I  could  not  feel  surprised,  for  all  that  I  have 
read  about  this  sect  has  been  in  the  nature  of  attacks. 
Mark  Twain  tells  about  what  was  called  a  "Destroying 
Angel"  of  the  Mormon  Church,  stating  that,  "as  I 
understand  it,  they  are  Latter  Day  Saints  who  are  set 
apart  by  the  Church  to  conduct  permanent  disappear 
ances  of  obnoxious  citizens."  He  characterizes  the  one 
he  met  as  "a  loud,  profane,  offensive  old  blackguard." 
But  Mormon  Destroying  Angels  are  things  of  the  past, 
as,  I  believe,  are  Mormon  visions  of  Empire,  and  Mor- 

446 


THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

mon  aggressions  of  all  kinds.  Another  book,  Harry 
Leon  Wilson's  novel,  "The  Lions  of  the  Lord,"  was  not 
calculated  to  soothe  the  Mormon  sensibilities,  and  of  the 
numerous  articles  in  magazines  and  newspapers  which 
I  have  read — most  of  them  with  regard  to  polygamy — 
I  recall  none  that  has  not  dealt  with  them  severely. 

Now,  remembering  that  whatever  we  may  believe,  the 
Mormons  believe  devoutly  in  their  religion,  what  must 
be  their  point  of  view  about  all  this?  Their  story  is 
not  different  from  any  other  in  that  it  has  two  sides. 
If  they  did  commit  aggressions  in  the  early  days,  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  case,  they  were  also  the  victims 
of  persecution  from  the  very  start,  and  it  is  difficult  to 
determine,  at  this  late  day,  whether  they,  or  those  who 
made  their  lives  in  the  East  unbearable,  were  most  at 
fault. 

According  to  Mormon  history  the  church  had  its  very 
beginnings  in  religious  dissension.  It  is  recounted  by  the 
Mormons  that  Joseph  Smith,  Jr.,  founder  of  the  church 
(he  was  the  uncle  of  the  present  President),  attended 
revival  meetings  in  Manchester,  Vermont,  and  was  so 
confused  by  the  differences  of  opinion  and  the  ill-feeling 
between  different  sects  that  he  prayed  to  the  Lord  to 
tell  him  which  was  the  true  religion.  In  regard  to  this, 
Smith  wrote  that  after  his  prayer,  "a  mysterious 
power  of  darkness  overcame  me.  I  could  not  speak  and 
I  felt  myself  in  the  grasp  of  an  unseen  personage  of 
darkness.  My  soul  went  up  in  an  unuttered  prayer  for 
deliverance,  and  as  I  was  about  despairing,  the  gloom 

447 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

rolled  away  and  I  saw  a  pillar  of  light  descending  from 
heaven,  approaching  me." 

Smith  then  tells  of  a  vision  of  a  Glorious  Being,  who 
informed  him  that  none  of  the  warring  religious  sects 
had  the  right  version.  Then:  "The  light  vanished, 
the  personages  withdrew  and  recovering  myself,  I  found 
myself  lying  on  my  back  gazing  up  into  heaven." 

Apropos  of  this,  and  of  other  similar  visions  which 
Smith  said  he  had,  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  there  is 
a  theory,  founded  upon  a  considerable  investigation, 
that  Smith  was  an  epileptic. 

After  his  first  vision  Smith  had  others,  and  according 
to  the  Mormon  belief,  he  finally  had  revealed  to  him 
the  Hill  Cumorah  (twenty-five  miles  southwest  of 
Rochester,  N.  Y.)  where  he  ultimately  found,  with  the 
aid  of  the  Angel  Moroni,  the  gold  plates  containing 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  together  with  the  Urim  and 
Thummim,  the  stone  spectacles  through  which  he  read 
the  plates  and  translated  them.  After  making  his 
translation,  Smith  returned  the  plates  to  the  angel,  but 
before  doing  so,  showed  them  to  eight  witnesses  who 
certified  to  having  seen  them. 

As  time  went  on  Smith  had  more  visions  until  at  last 
the  Mormon  Church  was  organized  in  1830.  Revela 
tions  continued.  The  church  grew.  Branches  were 
established  in  various  places,  but  according  to  their  his 
tory,  the  Mormons  were  persecuted  by  members  of  other 
religious  sects  and  driven  from  place  to  place.  For  a 
time  they  were  in  Kirtland,  Ohio.  Later  they  went  to 

448 


THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

Jackson  County,  Mo.,  but  their  houses  were  burned  and 
they  were  driven  on  again.  In  1838  "the  Lord  made 
known  to  him  (Smith)  that  Adam  had  dwelt  in  America, 
and  that  the  Garden  of  Eden  was  located  in  Jackson 
County,  Mo."  For  a  time  they  were  in  Nauvoo,  111., 
where  it  seems  their  political  activities  got  them  into 
trouble,  and  at  last  Joseph  Smith  and  his  brother  Hiram 
were  shot  and  killed  by  a  mob,  at  Carthage,  111.  That 
was  in  1844.  There  were  then  10,000  Mormons,  over 
whom  Brigham  Young  became  the  leading  power.  Soon 
after  this  the  westward  movement  began.  They  estab 
lished  various  settlements  in  Iowa,  and  in  1847  Young 
and  his  pioneer  band  of  143  men,  3  women  and  2  chil 
dren,  entered  the  valley  of  Salt  Lake,  where  they  im 
mediately  set  up  tents  and  cabins  and  began  to  plow 
and  plant,  and  where  they  started  what  the  Mormons 
say  was  the  first  irrigation  system  in  the  United  States. 
Certainly  there  were  good  engineers  among  them. 
Their  early  buildings  show  it — especially  the  famous 
Tabernacle  in  the  great  square  they  own  at  the  center 
of  the  city.  The  vast  arched  roof  of  the  Tabernacle  is 
supported  by  wooden  beams  which  were  lashed  together, 
no  nails  having  been  used.  This  building  is  not  beau 
tiful,  but  is  very  interesting.  It  contains  among  other 
things  a  large  pipe  organ  which  was,  in  its  day,  prob 
ably  the  finest  in  this  country,  although  there  are  better 
organs  elsewhere,  now.  The  Mormon  Trails  are  also 
recognized  in  the  West  as  the  best  trails,  with  the  lowest 
levels,  and  there  are  many  other  evidences  of  unusual 

449 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

engineering  and  mechanical  skill  on  the  part  of  the  early 
settlers,  including  a  curious  wooden  odometer  (now  in 
the  museum  at  Salt  Lake  City)  which  worked  in  con 
nection  with  the  wheel  of  a  prairie  schooner,  and  which 
was  marvelously  accurate. 

The  revelation  as  to  the  practice  of  polygamy  was 
made  to  Brigham  Young,  and  was  promulgated  in 
Utah  in  1852,  soon  becoming  a  subject  of  contention 
between  the  Mormons  and  the  Government.  The  prac 
tice  was  finally  suspended  by  a  manifesto  issued  by 
President  Wilford  Woodruff,  in  1890,  and  the  "History 
of  the  Church,"  written  by  Edward  H.  Anderson,  de 
clares  that  "a  plurality  of  wives  is  now  neither  taught 
nor  practised." 

Speaking  of  polygamy  I  was  informed  by  Prof.  Levi 
Edgar  Young,  a  nephew  of  Brigham  Young,  a  Harvard 
graduate  and  an  authority  on  Mormon  History,  that 
not  over  3  per  cent,  of  men  claiming  membership  in  the 
Mormon  Church  ever  had  practised  it.  These  figures 
surprised  me,  as  I  had  imagined  polygamy  to  be  the 
rule,  rather  than  the  exception.  Professor  Young, 
however,  assured  me  that  a  great  many  leading  Mor 
mons  had  refused  from  the  first  to  accept  the  practice. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  day  of  Brigham 
Young  was  not  this  day.  He  was  a  powerful,  far-see 
ing  and  very  able  man,  and  it  does  seem  probable  that  he 
had  the  idea  of  founding  an  Empire  in  the  West. 
However  the  discovery  of  gold  in  '48,  flooded  the  West 
with  settlers  and  brought  a  preponderance  of  "gen- 

450 


THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

tiles' '  (as  the  Mormons  call  those  who  are  not  members 
of  their  church)  into  all  that  country,  making  the  real 
ization  of  Young's  dream  impossible.  What  the  Mor 
mon  Church  needed,  in  those  early  times,  was  increase 
— more  men  to  do  its  work,  more  women  to  bear  chil 
dren — and  viewed  entirely  from  a  practical  standpoint, 
polygamy  was  a  practice  calculated  to  bring  about  this 
end.  I  met,  in  Salt  Lake  City  men  whose  fathers  had 
married  anywhere  from  five  or  six  to  a  dozen  wives,  and 
so  far  as  sturdiness  goes,  I  may  say  that  I  am  convinced 
that  plural  marriages  brought  about  no  deterioration  in 
the  stock. 

I  am  informed  that  the  membership  of  the  church, 
to-day,  is  between  500,000  and  600,000,  and  that  less 
than  i  per  cent,  of  the  Mormon  families  are  at  present 
polygamous.  It  is  not  denied  that  some  few  polyga 
mous  marriages  have  been  performed  since  the  issuance 
of  the  manifesto  against  the  practice,  but  these  have 
been  secret  marriages  without  the  sanction  of  the 
church,  and  priests  who  have  performed  such  marriages 
have,  when  detected,  been  excommunicated. 

I  was  told  in  Salt  Lake  City  that,  in  the  cases  of  some 
of  the  older  Mormons,  who  had  plural  wives  long  before 
the  manifesto,  there  was  little  doubt  that  polygamy  was 
still  being  practised.  Some  of  these  men  are  the  high 
est  in  the  church,  and  it  was  explained  to  me  that,  hav 
ing  married  their  wives  in  good  faith,  they  proposed  to 
carry  out  what  they  regard  as  their  obligations  to 
those  wives.  However,  these  are  old  men,  and  with 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

the  rise  of  another  generation  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  these  last  remnants  of  polygamy  will  have  been 
finally  stamped  out. 

The  modern  young  Mormon  man  or  woman  seems  to 
be  a  perfectly  normal  human  being  with  a  normal  point 
of  view  concerning  marriage.  Furthermore,  the  Mor 
mons  believe  in  education.  The  school  buildings  scat 
tered  everywhere  throughout  the  valley  are  very  fine, 
and  I  was  informed  that  80  per  cent,  of  the  whole  tax 
income  of  the  State  of  Utah  was  expended  upon  edu 
cation,  and  that  in  educational  percentages  Utah  com 
pares  favorably  with  Massachusetts. 

What  effect  a  broad  education  might  have  upon  suc 
ceeding  generations  of  Mormons  it  is  difficult  to  say. 
From  a  literary  point  of  view,  the  Book  of  Mormon  will 
not  bear  close  scrutiny.  Mark  Twain  described  it  accu 
rately  when  he  said,  in  "Roughing  It" : 

The  book  seems  to  be  merely  a  prosy  detail  of  imaginary  his 
tory,  with  the  Old  Testament  for  a  model ;  followed  by  a  tedious 
plagiarism  of  the  New  Testament.  The  author  labored  to  give 
his  words  and  phrases  the  quaint  old-fashioned  sound  and  struc 
ture  of  our  King  James's  translation  of  the  Scriptures ;  and  the 
result  is  a  mongrel — half  modern  glibness  and  half  ancient  sim 
plicity  and  gravity.  The  latter  is  awkward  and  constrained ;  the 
former  natural,  but  grotesque  by  contrast.  Whenever  he  found 
his  speech  growing  too  modern — which  was  about  every  sentence 
or  two — he  ladled  in  a  few  such  Scriptural  phrases  as  "exceed 
ing  sore,"  "and  it  came  to  pass,"  etc.,  and  made  things  satisfac 
tory  again.  .  .  .  The  Mormon  Bible  is  rather  stupid  and  tiresome 
to  read,  but  there  is  nothing  vicious  in  its  teachings.  Its  code 
of  morals  is  unobjectionable — it  is  "smouched"  from  the  New 
Testament  and  no  credit  given. 

452 


Kff 

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£  HJ 

P 


THE  MORMON  CAPITAL 

Certainly  there  is  no  need  to  prove  that  education  is 
death  on  dogma.  That  fact  has  been  proving  itself  as 
scientific  research  has  come  more  and  more  into  play 
upon  various  dogmatic  creeds.  I  was  told,  however, 
that  the  Mormon  Church  schools  were  liberal;  that  in 
stead  of  restricting  knowledge  to  conform  to  the  teach 
ings  of  the  church,  the  church  was  showing  a  tendency 
to  adapt  itself  to  meet  new  conditions. 

If  it  is  doing  that  it  is  cleverer  than  some  other 
churches. 


453 


CHAPTER  XXXV 
THE  SMITHS 

BEFORE  going  to  Salt 'Lake  City  I  had  heard 
that  the  Mormons  were  in  complete  control  of 
politics  and  business  in  the  State  of  Utah,  and 
that  it  was  their  practice  to  discriminate  against  "gen 
tiles,"  making  it  impossible  for  them  to  be  successful 
there.  I  asked  a  great  many  citizens  of  Salt  Lake  City 
about  this,  and  all  the  evidence  indicated  that  such 
rumors  are  without  foundation,  and  that,  of  recent 
years,  Mormons  and  "gentiles"  have  worked  harmoni 
ously  together,  socially  and  in  business.  The  Mormons 
have  a  strong  political  machine  and  pull  together  much 
as  the  Roman  Catholics  do,  but  the  idea  that  they  domi 
nate  everything  in  Salt  Lake  City  seems  to  be  a  mis 
taken  one.  Time  and  again  I  was  assured  of  this  by 
both  Mormons  and  "gentiles,"  and  an  officer  of  the 
Commercial  Club  went  so  far  as  to  draw  up  figures, 
supporting  the  statement,  as  follows : 

Of  the  city's  fourteen  banks  and  trust  companies, 
nine  are  not  under  Mormon  control;  of  five  department 
stores,  four  are  non-Mormon;  all  skyscrapers  except 
one  are  owned  by  "gentiles" ;  likewise  four-fifths  of  the 
best  residence  property.  Furthermore,  neither  the  city 

454 


THE  SMITHS 

government  nor  the  public  utilities  are  run  by  Mormons, 
nor  are  the  Mayor  and  the  President  of  the  Board  of 
Education  members  of  that  church. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  Mormon  business  interests  are 
not  enormous,  but  only  that  there  has  been  exaggera 
tion  on  these  points,  as  on  many  others  concerning  this 
sect.  The  heads  of  the  church  are  big  business  men, 
and  President  Smith  is,  among  other  things,  a  director 
of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  Company. 

Among  other  well-informed  men  with  whom  I  talked 
upon  this  subject  was  the  city-editor  of  a  leading  news 
paper. 

"I  am  not  a  Mormon/'  he  said,  "although  my  wife  is 
one.  You  may  draw  your  own  conclusions  as  to  the 
Mormon  attitude  when  I  tell  you  that  the  paper  on 
which  I  work  is  controlled  by  them,  yet  that,  as  it  hap 
pens  just  now,  I  have  n't  a  Mormon  reporter  on  my 
staff.  Here  and  there  there  may  be  some  old  hard 
shell  Mormon  who  won't  employ  any  one  that  is  n't 
a  member  of  the  church,  but  cases  of  that  kind  are 
as  rare  among  Mormons  as  among  other  religious 
sects." 

Every  business  man  with  whom  I  talked  seemed 
anxious  to  impress  me  with  this  fact,  that  I  might  pass 
it  on  in  print. 

"For  heaven's  sake,"  said  one  impassioned  citizen, 
"tell  people  that  we  raise  something  out  here  besides 
Mormons  and  hell!" 

One  of  the  most  level-headed  men  I  met  in  Salt  Lake 

455 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

City  was  a  Mormon,  though  not  orthodox.  His  position 
with  regard  to  the  church  was  precisely  the  same  as  that 
of  a  man  who  has  been  brought  up  in  any  other  church, 
but  who,  as  he  grows  older,  cannot  accept  the  creed  ir> 
its  entirety.  His  attitude  as  to  the  Mormon  Bible  was 
one  of  honest  doubt.  In  short,  he  was  an  agnostic,  and 
as  such  talked  interestingly. 

"Of  course/'  he  said,  "out  here  we  are  as  used  to  the 
Mormon  religion  and  to  the  idea  that  some  men  have 
a  number  of  wives,  as  you  are  to  the  idea  that  men  have 
only  one  wife.  It  does  n't  seem  strange  to  us.  I  can't 
adjust  my  mind  to  the  fact  that  it  is  strange,  and  I  only 
become  conscious  of  it  when  I  go  to  other  parts  of  the 
country  and  find  that,  when  people  know  I  'm  a  Mor 
mon,  they  become  very  curious,  and  want  me  to  tell 
them  all  about  the  Mormons  and  polygamy. 

"Now,  in  trying  to  understand  the  Mormons,  the  first 
thing  to  remember  is  that  they  are  human  beings,  with 
the  same  set  of  virtues  and  failings  and  feelings  as 
other  human  beings.  There  are  some  who  are  dogmat 
ically  religious ;  some  with  whom  marriage — even  plural 
marriage — is  just  as  pure  and  spiritual  a  thing  as  it  is 
with  any  other  people  in  the  world.  On  the  other  hand, 
some  Mormons,  like  some  members  of  other  sects,  have 
doubtless  had  lusts.  The  family  life  of  some  Mormons 
is  very  beautiful,  and  as  smoking,  drinking  and  other 
dissipations  are  forbidden,  orthodox  Mormon  men  lead 
very  clean  lives.  In  this  they  are  upheld  by  our  women, 
for  many  Mormon  women  will  not  marry  a  man  except- 

456 


THE  SMITHS 

ing  in  our  Temple,  and  no  man  who  has  broken  the  rules 
of  the  church  may  be  married  there. 

"Among  the  younger  generation  of  Mormons  you  will 
see  the  same  general  line  of  characteristics  as  among 
young  people  anywhere.  Some  of  them  grow  up  into 
strict  Mormons,  while  others — particularly  some  of  the 
sons  of  rich  Mormons — are  what  you  might  call 
'sports/  Human  nature  is  no  different  in  Utah  than 
elsewhere. 

"My  father  had  several  wives  and  I  had  a  great  num 
ber  of  brothers  and  sisters.  We  did  n't  live  like  one  big 
family,  and  the  half-brothers  and  half-sisters  did  not 
feel  towards  each  other  as  real  brothers  and  sisters  do. 
When  my  father  was  a  very  old  man  he  married  a 
young  wife,  and  we  felt  about  it  just  as  any  other  sons 
and  daughters  would  at  seeing  their  father  do  such  a 
thing.  We  felt  it  was  a  mistake,  and  that  it  was  not 
just  to  us,  for  father  had  not  many  more  years  to  live, 
and  it  appeared  that  on  his  death  we  might  have  his 
young  wife  and  her  family  to  look  after. 

"My  views  are  such  that  in  bringing  up  my  own  chil 
dren  I  have  not  had  them  baptized  as  Mormons  at  the 
age  of  eight,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  church. 
This  has  grieved  my  people,  but  I  cannot  help  it.  I  am 
bringing  my  children  up  to  fear  God  and  lead  clean  lives, 
but  I  do  not  think  I  have  the  right  to  force  them 
into  any  church,  and  I  propose  to  leave  the  matter  of 
joining  or  not  joining  to  their  own  discretion,  later 


on." 


457 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Another  Mormon,  this  one  orthodox,  and  a  cultivated 
man,  told  me  he  thought  that  in  most  cases  the  old  po 
lygamous  marriages  were  entered  into  with  a  spirit  of 
real  religious  fervor. 

"My  father  married  two  wives,"  he  said.  "He  loved 
my  mother,  who  was  his  first  wife,  very  dearly,  and 
they  are  as  fine  and  contented  a  couple  as  you  ever  saw. 
But  when  the  revelation  as  to  polygamy  was  made, 
father  took  a  second  wife  because  he  believed  it  to  be 
his  duty  to  do  so." 

"How  did  your  mother  feel  about  it?"  I  asked. 

"I  have  no  doubt,"  said  he,  "that  it  hurt  mother  ter 
ribly,  but  she  was  submissive  because  she  believed  it 
was  right.  And  later,  when  the  manifesto  against  po 
lygamy  was  issued,  it  hurt  father's  second  wife,  when 
he  had  to  give  her  up,  for  he  had  two  children  by  her. 
However,  he  obeyed  implicitly  the  law  of  the  church, 
supporting  his  second  wife  and  her  children,  but  living 
with  my  mother." 

Later  this  gentleman  took  me  to  call  at  the  home  of 
this  old  couple.  The  husband,  more  than  eighty  years 
of  age,  was  a  professional  man  with  a  degree  from  a 
large  eastern  university.  He  was  a  gentleman  of  the 
old  school,  very  fine,  dignified,  and  gracious,  and  there 
was  an  air  about  him  which  somehow  made  me  think  of 
a  sturdy,  straight  old  tree.  As  for  his  wife  she  was 
one  of  the  two  most  adorable  old  ladies  I  have  ever 
met. 

Very  simply  she  told  me  of  the  early  days.  Her 

458 


THE  SMITHS 

parents  had  been  well-to-do  Pennsylvania  Dutch  and 
had  left  a  prosperous  home  in  the  East  and  come  out  to 
the  West,  not  to  better  themselves,  but  because  of  their 
religion.  (One  should  always  remember  that,  in  think 
ing  of  the  Mormons:  whatever  may  have  been  the 
rights  and  wrongs  of  their  religion,  they  have  believed 
in  it  and  suffered  for  it.)  She,  herself,  was  born  in 
1847,  m  a  prairie  schooner,  on  the  banks  of  the  Missouri 
River,  and  in  that  vehicle  she  was  carried  across  the 
plains  and  through  the  passes,  to  where  Salt  Lake  City 
was  then  in  the  first  year  of  its  settlement.  Some  fam 
ilies  were  still  living  in  tents  when  she  was  a  little  girl, 
but  log  cabins  were  springing  up.  Behind  her  house,  I 
was  shown,  later,  the  cabin — now  used  as  a  lumber  shed 
— in  which  she  dwelt  as  a  child. 

Fancy  the  fascination  that  there  was  in  hearing  that 
old  lady  tell,  in  her  simple  way;  the  story  of  the  early 
Mormon  settlement.  For  all  her  gentleness  and  the 
low  voice  in  which  she  spoke,  the  tale  was  an  epic  in 
which  she  herself  had  figured.  She  was  not  merely 
the  daughter  of  a  pioneer,  and  the  wife  of  one ;  she  was 
a  pioneer  herself.  She  had  seen  it  all,  from  the  begin 
ning.  How  much  she  had  seen,  how  much  she  had 
endured,  how  much  she  had  known  of  happiness  and 
sorrow!  And  now,  in  her  old  age,  she  had  a  nature 
like  a  distillation  made  of  everything  there  is  in  life, 
and  whatever  bitterness  there  may  have  been  in  life  for 
her  had  gone,  and  left  her  altogether  lovable  and  alto 
gether  sweet. 

459 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

I  did  not  wish  to  leave  her  house,  and  when  I  did, 
and  when  she  said  she  hoped  that  I  would  come  again, 
I  was  conscious  of  a  lump  in  my  throat.  I  do  not  ex 
pect  you  to  understand  it,  for  I  do  not,  quite,  myself. 
But  there  it  was — that  kind  of  lump  which,  once  in  a 
long  time,  will  rise  up  in  one's  throat  when  one  sees  a 
very  lovely,  very  happy  child. 

When  our  friend  Professor  Young  asked  us  whether 
we  had  met  President  Joseph  F.  Smith,  we  told  him  of 
our  unfortunate  encounter  with  that  gentleman,  in  the 
Lion  House,  a  day  or  two  before.  This  information 
led  to  activities  on  the  part  of  the  Professor,  which  in 
turn  led  to  our  being  invited,  on  the  day  of  our  depart 
ure,  to  meet  the  President  and  some  members  of  his 
family  at  the  Beehive  House — the  official  residence  of 
the  head  of  the  church. 

The  Beehive  House  is  a  large  old-fashioned  mansion 
with  the  kind  of  pillared  front  so  often  seen  in  the 
architecture  of  the  South.  Its  furnishings  are,  like  the 
house  itself,  old-fashioned,  homelike,  and  unostenta 
tious. 

I  have  forgotten  who  let  us  in,  but  I  have  no  recollec 
tion  of  a  maid,  and  I  rather  think  the  door  was  opened 
by  the  President  himself.  At  all  events  we  had  no 
sooner  entered  than  we  met  him,  in  the  hall.  His  man 
ner  had  changed.  He  was  most  hospitable,  and  walked 
through  several  rooms  with  us,  showing  us  some  plaster 
casts  and  paintings,  the  work  of  Mormon  artists.  Most 

460 


The  Lion  House— a  large  adobe  building  in  which  formerly  resided  the  rank  and 
file  of  Brigham  Young's  wives 


THE  SMITHS 

of  the  paintings  were  extremely  ordinary,  but  the  work 
of  one  young  sculptor  was  remarkable,  and  as  the  story 
of  him  is  remarkable  as  well,  I  wish  to  mention  him 
here. 

He  is  a  boy  named  Arvard  Fairbanks,  a  grandson  of 
Mormon  pioneers,  on  both  sides,  and  he  is  not  yet  twenty 
years  of  age.  At  twelve  he  started  modeling  animals 
from  life.  At  thirteen  he  took  a  scholarship  in  the  Art 
Students'  League,  in  New  York,  and  exhibited  at  the 
National  Academy  of  Design.  At  fourteen  he  took 
another  scholarship  and  also  got  an  art  school  into  trou 
ble  with  the  sometimes  rather  silly  Gerry  Society,  for 
permitting  a  child  to  model  from  the  nude.  Work  done 
by  this  boy  at  the  age  of  fifteen  is  nothing  short  of 
amazing.  I  have  never  seen  such  finished  things  from 
the  hand  of  a  youth.  His  subjects — Indians,  buffalo, 
pumas,  etc. — show  splendid  observation  and  under 
standing,  and  are  full  of  the  feeling  of  the  West.  And 
if  the  West  is  not  very  proud  of  him  some  day,  I  shall 
be  surprised. 

After  showing  us  -these  things,  and  talking  upon  gen 
eral  subjects  for  a  time,  the  President  went  to  the  foot 
of  the  stairs  and  called: 

"Mamma !" 

Whereupon  a  woman's  voice  answered,  from  above, 
and  a  moment  later  Mrs.  Smith — one  of  the  Mrs. 
Smiths — appeared.  She  was  most  cordial  and  kindly 
— a  pleasant,  motherly  sort  of  woman  who  made  you 
feel  that  she  was  always  in  good  spirits. 

461 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

After  we  had  enjoyed  a  pleasant  little  talk  with  her, 
one  of  her  sons  and  his  wife  came  in :  he  a  strong  young 
farmer,  she  pretty,  plump  and  rosy.  They  had  with 
them  their  little  girl,  who  played  about  upon  the  floor. 
Later  appeared  President  Penrose  (there  are  several 
Presidents  in  the  Mormon  Church,  but  President  Smith 
is  the  leader)  who  has  red  cheeks  and  brown  hair  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  he  is  eighty-two  years  old,  and  con 
siderably  married. 

Here  in  the  midst  of  this  intimate  family  group  I  kept 
wishing  that,  in  some  way,  the  matter  of  polygamy 
might  be  mentioned.  By  this  time  I  had  heard  so  many 
Mormons  talk  about  it  freely  that  I  understood  the  topic 
was  not  taboo;  still,  in  the  presence  of  Mrs.  Smith  I 
hardly  knew  how  to  begin,  or  indeed,  whether  it  was 
tactful  to  begin — although  I  had  been  informed  in  ad 
vance  that  I  might  ask  questions. 

But  how  to  ask?  I  couldn't  very  well  say  to  this 
pleasant  lady:  "How  do  you  like  being  one  of  five  or 
six  wives,  and  how  do  you  think  the  others  like  it?" 
And  as  for:  "How  do  you  like  being  married?"  that 
hardly  expressed  the  question  that  was  in  my  mind — be 
sides  which,  it  was  plainly  evident  that  the  lady  was 
entirely  content  with  her  lot. 

It  did  not  seem  proper  to  inquire  of  my  hostess: 
"How  can  you  be  content?"  That  much  my  social  in 
stinct  told  me.  What,  then,  could  I  ask? 

At  last  the  baby  granddaughter  gave  me  a  happy 

462 


THE  SMITHS 

thought.  "Certainly,"  I  said  to  myself,  "it  cannot  be 
bad  form  to  make  polite  inquiries  about  the  family  of 
any  gentleman." 

I  tried  to  think  how  I  might  best  ask  the  President  the 
question.  "Have  you  any  children?"  would  not  do,  be 
cause  there  was  his  son,  right  in  the  room,  and  other 
sons  and  daughters  had  been  referred  to  in  the  course 
of  conversation.  Finally,  as  time  was  getting  short,  I 
determined  to  put  it  bluntly. 

"How  many  children  and  grandchildren  have  you?" 
I  asked  President  Smith. 

He  was  not  in  the  least  annoyed  by  the  inquiry;  only 
a  little  bit  perplexed. 

"Let 's  see,"  he  answered  ruminatively,  fingering  his 
long  beard,  and  looking  at  the  ceiling.  "I  don't  remem 
ber  exactly — but  over  a  hundred." 

"Why!"  put  in  Mrs.  Smith,  proudly,  "you  have  a  lot 
over  a  hundred."  Then,  to  me,  she  explained:  "I  am 
the  mother  of  eleven,  and  I  have  had  thirty-two  grand 
children  in  the  last  twelve  years.  There  is  forty-three, 
right  there." 

"Oh,  you  surely  have  a  hundred  and  ten,  father,"  said 
young  Smith. 

"Perhaps,  perhaps,"  returned  the  modern  Abraham, 
contentedly. 

"I  beat  you,  though!"  laughed  President  Pen- 
rose. 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  interposed  young  Smith, 

463 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

sticking  up  for  the  family.  "If  father  would  count  up 
I  think  you  'd  find  he  was  ahead." 

"How  many  have  you?"  President  Smith  inquired  of 
his  coadjutor. 

President  Penrose  rubbed  his  hands  and  beamed  with 
satisfaction. 

"A  hundred  and  twenty-odd/'  he  said. 

After  that  there  was  no  gainsaying  him.  He  was 
supreme.  Even  Mrs.  Smith  admitted  it. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  smiling  and  shaking  a  playful  finger 
at  him,  "you  're  ahead  just  now ;  but  remember,  you  're 
older  than  we  are.  You  just  give  us  time !" 


464 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 
PASSING  PICTURES 

AS  our  train  crossed  the  Great  Salt  Lake  the 
farther  shores  were  glistening  in  a  golden  haze, 
half  real,  half  mirage,  like  the  shores  of  Pses- 
tum  as  you  see  them  from  the  monastery  at  Amalfi  on 
a  sunny  day.  Beyond  the  lake  a  portion  of  the  desert 
was  glazed  with  a  curious  thin  film  of  water — evidently 
overflow — in  which  the  forms  of  stony  hills  at  the  mar 
gin  of  the  waste  were  reflected  so  clearly  that  the  eye 
could  not  determine  the  exact  point  of  meeting  between 
cliff  and  plain.  Farther  out  in  the  desert  there  was 
no  water,  and  as  we  left  the  hills  behind,  the  world  be 
came  a  great  white  arid  reach,  flat  as  only  moist  sand  can 
be  flat,  and  tragic  in  its  desolation.  For  a  time  nothing, 
literally,  was  visible  but  sky  and  desert,  save  for  a  line 
of  telegraph  poles,  rising  forlornly  beside  the  right-of- 
way. 

I  found  the  desert  impressive,  but  my  companion, 
whose  luncheon  had  not  agreed  with  him,  declared  that 
it  was  not  up  to  specifications. 

"Any  one  who  is  familiar  with  Frederick  Reming 
ton's  drawings/'  he  said,  "knows  that  there  must  be 
skeletons  and  buffalo  skulls  stuck  around  on  deserts." 

465 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

I  was  about  to  explain  that  the  Western  Pacific  was 
a  new  railroad  and  that  probably  they  had  not  yet  found 
time  to  do  their  landscape  gardening  along  the  line, 
when,  far  ahead,  I  caught  sight  of  a  dark  dot  on  the 
sand.  I  kept  my  eye  on  it.  As  our  train  overtook  it, 
it  began  to  assume  form,  and  at  last  I  saw  that  it  was 
actually  a  prairie  schooner.  Presently  we  passed  it. 
It  was  moving  slowly  along,  a  few  hundred  yards  from 
the  track.  The  horses  were  walking;  their  heads  were 
down  and  they  looked  tired.  The  man  who  was  driv 
ing  was  the  only  human  being  visible;  he  was  hunched 
over,  and  when  the  train  went  by,  he  never  so  much  as 
turned  his  head. 

The  picture  was  perfect.  Even  my  companion  ad 
mitted  that,  and  ceased  to  demand  skulls  and  skeletons. 
And  when,  two  or  three  hours  later,  after  having 
crossed  the  desert  and  worked  our  way  into  the  hills, 
we  saw  a  full-fledged  cowboy  on  a  pinto  pony,  we  felt 
that  the  Western  Pacific  railroad  was  complete  in  its 
theatrical  accessories. 

The  cowboy  did  his  best  to  give  us  Western  color. 
When  he  saw  the  train  coming,  he  spurred  up  his  pony, 
and  waving  a  lasso,  set  out  in  pursuit  of  an  innocent 
old  milch  cow,  which  was  grazing  nearby.  That  she 
was  no  range  animal  was  evident.  Her  sleek  condition 
and  her  calm  demeanor  showed  that  she  was  fully  ac 
customed  to  the  refined  surroundings  of  the  stable.  As 
he  came  at  her  she  gazed  in  horrified  amazement,  quite 
as  some  fat,  dignified  old  lady  might  gaze  at  a  bad  little 

466 


PASSING  PICTURES 

boy,  running  at  her  with  a  pea-shooter.  Then,  in  bo 
vine  alarm,  she  turned  and  lumbered  heavily  away. 
The  cowboy  charged  and  cut  her  off,  waving  his  rope 
and  yelling.  However,  no  capture  was  made.  As 
soon  as  the  train  had  passed  the  cowboy  desisted,  and 
poor  old  bossy  was  allowed  to  settle  down  again  to  com 
fortable  grazing. 

After  a  good  dinner  in  one  of  those  admirable  dining 
cars  one  always  finds  on  western  roads,  and  a  good 
smoke,  my  companion  and  I  were  ready  for  bed.  But 
as  we  were  about  to  retire,  a  fellow-passenger  with 
whom  we  had  been  talking,  asked,  "Are  n't  you  going 
to  sit  up  for  Elko?" 

"What  is  there  at  Elko?"  inquired  my  companion, 
writh  a  yawn. 

"Oh/'  said  the  other,  "there's  a  little  of  the  local 
color  of  Nevada  there.  You  had  better  wait." 

"I  don't  believe  we  '11  be  able  to  see  anything,"  I  put 
in,  glancing  out  at  the  black  night. 

"It  is  something  you  could  n't  see  by  daylight,"  said 
the  stranger. 

That  made  us  curious,  so  we  sat  up. 

As  the  train  slowed  for  Elko,  and  we  went  to  get 
our  overcoats,  we  observed  that  one  passenger,  a 
woman,  was  making  ready  to  get  off.  We  had  noticed 
her  during  the  day — a  stalwart  woman  of  thirty-three 
or  four,  perhaps,  who,  we  judged,  had  once  been  very 
handsome,  though  she  now  looked  faded.  Her  hair 
was  a  dull  red,  and  her  complexion  was  of  that  milky 

467 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

whiteness  which  so  often  accompanies  red  hair.  Her 
eyes  were  green,  cold  and  expressionless,  and  her  mouth, 
though  well  formed,  sagged  at  the  corners,  giving  her 
a  discontented  and  rather  hard  look.  I  remember  that 
we  wondered  what  manner  of  woman  she  was,  and  that 
we  could  not  decide. 

The  train  stopped,  and  with  our  acquaintance  of  the 
car,  my  companion  and  I  alighted.  It  was  a  long  train, 
and  our  sleeper,  which  was  near  the  rear,  came  to  a 
standstill  some  distance  short  of  the  station  building,  so 
that  the  part  of  the  platform  to  which  we  stepped  was 
without  light.  Beyond  the  station  we  saw  several  build 
ings  looming  like  black  shadows,  but  that  was  all;  we 
could  make  out  nothing  of  the  town. 

"I  don't  see  much  here,"  I  remarked  to  the  man  who 
had  suggested  sitting  up. 

"Come  on,"  he  said,  moving  back  through  the  black 
ness,  towards  the  end  of  the  train. 

As  I  turned  to  follow  him  I  saw  the  red-haired  woman 
step  down  from  the  car  and  hand  her  suitcase  to  a  man 
who  had  been  awaiting  her;  they  stood  for  a  moment 
in  conversation;  as  I  moved  away  I  heard  their  low 
voices. 

Reaching  the  last  car  our  guide  descended  to  the  track 
and  crossed  to  the  other  side.  We  followed.  My  first 
glimpse  of  what  lay  beyond  gave  me  the  impression  that 
a  large  railroad  yard  was  spread  out  before  me,  its 
myriad  switch-lights  glowing  red  through  the  black 
night.  But  as  my  eyes  became  accustomed  to  the  dark- 

468 


PASSING  PICTURES 

ness,  I  saw  that  here  was  not  a  maze  of  tracks,  but  a 
maze  of  houses,  and  that  the  lights  were  not  those  of 
switches,  but  of  windows  and  front  doors:  night  signs 
of  the  traffic  to  which  the  houses  were  dedicated. 

"There,"  said  our  acquaintance.  "A  few  years  back 
you  'd  have  seen  this  in  almost  any  town  out  here,  but 
things  are  changing ;  I  don't  know  another  place  on  this 
whole  line  that  shows  off  its  red  light  district  the  way 
Elko  does." 

After  looking  for  a  time  at  the  sinister  lights,  we  re- 
crossed  the  railroad  track.  As  we  stepped  up  to  the 
platform,  two  figures  coming  in  the  opposite  direction 
rounded  the  rear  car  and,  crossing  the  rails,  moved  away 
towards  the  illuminated  region.  I  heard  their  voices; 
they  were  the  red  haired  woman  and  the  man  who  had 
met  her  at  the  train. 

Was  she  a  new  arrival  ?  I  think  not,  for  she  seemed 
to  know  the  man,  and  she  had,  somehow,  the  air  of 
getting  home.  Was  she  an  "inmate"  of  one  of  the  es 
tablishments  ?  Again  I  think  not,  for,  with  her  look  of 
hardness,  there  was  also  one  of  capability,  and  more 
than  any  one  thing  it  is  laziness  and  lack  of  capability 
which  cause  sane  women  to  give  up  freedom  for  such 
"homes."  No;  I  think  the  woman  from  the  train  was 
a  proprietor  who  had  been  away  on  a  vacation,  or  per 
haps  a  "business  trip." 

Suppose  that  to  be  true.  Suppose  that  she  had  been 
away  for  several  weeks.  What  was  her  feeling  at  see 
ing,  again,  the  crimson  beacon  in  her  own  window? 

469 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

What  must  it  be  like  to  get  home,  when  home  is  such  a 
place?  Could  one's  mental  attitude  become  so  warped 
that  one  might  actually  look  forward  to  returning — to 
being  greeted  by  the  "family"?  Could  it  be  that,  at 
sight  of  that  red  light,  flaring  over  there  across  the 
tracks,  one  might  heave  a  happy  sigh  and  say  to  oneself : 
"Ah!  Home  again  at  last!  There's  no  place  like 
home"—? 

One  thing  the  Western  Pacific  Railroad  does  that 
every  railroad  should  do.  It  publishes  a  pamphlet,  con 
taining  a  relief  map  of  its  system,  and  a  paragraph  or 
two  about  every  station  on  the  line,  giving  the  history 
of  the  place  (if  it  has  any),  telling  the  altitude,  the  dis 
tance  from  terminal  points,  and  how  the  town  got  its 
name. 

From  this  pamphlet  I  judge  that  some  one  who  had  to 
do  with  the  building  of  the  Western  Pacific  Railroad, 
or  at  least  with  the  naming  of  stations  on  the  line, 
possessed  a  pleasantly  catholic  literary  taste.  Gaskell, 
Nevada,  one  stopping  place,  is  named  for  the  author  of 
"Cranford";  Bronte,  in  the  same  State,  for  Charlotte 
Bronte;  Poe,  in  California,  for  Edgar  Allan  Poe; 
Twain  for  Mark  Twain;  Harte  for  Bret  Harte,  and 
Mabie  for  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie.  Other  stations 
are  named  for  British  Field  Marshals,  German  scien 
tists,  American  politicians  and  financiers,  and  for  old 
settlers,  ranches,  and  landmarks. 

Had  there  not  been  washouts  on  the  line  shortly  be- 

470 


PASSING  PICTURES 

fore  we  journeyed  over  it,  I  might  not  have  known  so 
much  about  this  little  pamphlet,  but  during  the  night, 
when  I  could  not  sleep  because  of  the  violent  rocking 
of  the  car,  I  read  it  with  great  care.  Thus  it  happened 
that  when,  towards  morning,  we  stopped,  and  I  raised 
my  curtain  to  find  the  ground  covered  with  a  blanket 
of  snow,  I  was  able  to  establish  myself  as  being  in  the 
Sierras,  somewhere  in  the  region  of  the  Beckwith  Pass 
— which,  by  the  way,  is  by  two  thousand  feet,  the  lowest 
pass  used  by  any  railroad  entering  the  State  of  Cali 
fornia. 

Some  time  before  dawn  the  roadbed  became  solid  and 
I  slept  until  summoned  by  my  companion  to  see  the  canon 
of  the  Feather  River. 

Dressing  hurriedly,  I  joined  him  at  the  window  on 
the  other  side  of  the  car  (I  have  observed  that,  almost 
invariably,  that  is  where  the  scenery  is),  and -looked 
down  into  what  I  still  remember  as  the  most  beautiful 
canon  I  have  ever  seen. 

The  last  time  I  had  looked  out  it  had  been  winter, 
yet  here,  within  the  space  of  a  few  hours,  had  come  the 
spring.  It  gave  me  the  feeling  of  a  Rip  Van  Winkle: 
I  had  slept  and  a  whole  season  had  passed.  Our  train 
was  winding  along  a  serpentine  shelf  nicked  into  the 
lofty  walls  of  a  gorge  at  the  bottom  of  which  rushed 
a  mad  stream  all  green  and  foamy.  Above,  the  moun 
tains  were  covered  with  tall  pines,  their  straight  trunks 
reaching  heavenward  like  the  slender  columns  of  a  Gothic 
cathedral,  the  roof  of  which  was  made  of  low-hung, 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

stone-gray  cloud — a  cathedral  decked  as  for  the  Easter 
season,  its  aisles  and  altars  abloom  with  green  leaves, 
and  blossoms  purple  and  white. 

Throughout  the  hundred  miles  for  which  we  fol 
lowed  the  windings  of  the  Feather  River  Canon,  our 
eyes  hardly  left  the  window.  Now  we  would  crash 
through  a  short,  black  tunnel,  emerging  to  find  still 
greater  loveliness  where  we  had  thought  no  greater  love 
liness  could  be ;  now  we  would  traverse  a  spindly  bridge 
which  quickly  changed  the  view  (and  us)  to  the  other 
side  of  the  car.  Now  we  would  pass  the  intake  of  a 
power  plant ;  next  we  would  come  upon  the  plant  itself,  a 
monumental  pile,  looking  like  some  Rhenish  castle  which 
had  slipped  down  from  a  peak  and  settled  comfortably 
beside  the  stream. 

Once  the  flagman  who  dropped  ofif  when  the  train 
stopped,  brought  us  back  some  souvenirs:  a  little  pink 
lizard  which,  according  to  its  captor,  suited  itself  to  a 
vogue  of  the  moment  with  the  name  of  Salamander; 
and  a  piece  of  glistening  quartz  which  he  designated 
"fools'  gold."  And  presently,  when  the  train  was  under 
way  again,  we  saw,  far  down  at  the  water's  edge,  the 
"fools"  themselves  in  search  of  gold — two  old  gray- 
bearded  placer-miners  with  their  pans. 

At  last  the  walls  of  the  canon  began  to  melt  away, 
spreading  apart  and  drifting  down  into  the  gentle  slope 
of  a  green  valley  starred  with  golden  poppies.  Spring 
had  turned  to  summer — a  summer  almost  tropical,  for, 
at  Sacramento,  early  in  the  afternoon,  we  saw  open 

472 


PASSING  PICTURES 

street-cars,  their  seats  ranged  back-to-back  and  facing 
outwards,  like  those  of  an  Irish  jaunting-car,  running 
through  an  avenue  lined  with  a  double  row  of  palms, 
beneath  which  girls  were  coming  home  from  school  bare 
headed  and  in  linen  sailor  suits. 

Imagine  leaving  New  York  on  a  snowy  Christmas 
morning,  and  arriving  that  same  afternoon  in  Buffalo, 
to  find  them  celebrating  Independence  Day,  and  you  will 
get  the  sense  of  that  transition.  We  had  passed  from 
furs  to  shirtsleeves  in  a  morning. 

Late  that  afternoon,  we  left  the  valley  and  began  to 
thread  our  way  among  the  Coast  Range  hills — green 
velvet  hills,  soft,  round  and  voluptuous,  like  the  "Paps 
of  Kerry."  We  were  still  amongst  them  when  the  sun 
went  down,  and  it  was  night  when  we  arrived  at  the  ter 
minal  in  Oakland. 


473 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 
SAN  FRANCISCO 

LEAVING  the  train  in  Oakland,  one  is  reminded 
of  Hoboken  or  Jersey  City  in  the  days  before 
the  Hudson  Tubes  were  built.  There  is  the 
train  shed,  the  throng  headed  for  the  ferry,  the  bag 
gage  trucks,  and  the  ferryboat  itself,  like  a  New  York 
ferryboat  down  to  its  very  smell.  Likewise  the  fresh 
salt  wind  that  blows  into  your  face  as  you  stand  at  the 
front  of  the  boat,  in  crossing  San  Francisco  Bay,  is  like 
a  spring  or  summer  wind  in  New  York  Harbor.  So, 
if  you  cross  at  night,  you  have  only  the  lights  to  tell  you 
that  you  are  not  indeed  arriving  in  New  York. 

The  ferry  is  three  miles  wide.  There  are  no  sky 
scrapers,  with  lighted  windows,  looming  overhead,  as 
they  loom  over  the  Hudson.  To  the  right  the  myriad 
lamps  of  Oakland,  Berkeley  and  Alameda  are  distributed 
along  the  shore,  electric  trains  dashing  in  front  of  them 
like  comets;  and  straight  ahead  lies  San  Francisco — a 
fallen  fragment  of  the  Milky  Way,  draped  over  a  suc 
cession  of  receding  hills. 

Crossing  the  ferry  I  tried  to  remember  things  I  had 
been  told  of  this  city  of  my  dreams,  and  to  imagine 
what  it  would  be  like.  Of  course  I  had  been  warned 

474 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

time  and  again  not  to  refer  to  it  as  "  'Frisco/'  and  not 
to  speak  of  the  Earthquake,  but  only  of  the  Fire.  I  had 
those  two  points  well  in  mind,  but  there  were  others 
out  of  which  I  endeavored  to  construct  an  imaginary 
town. 

San  Francisco  was,  as  I  pictured  it  in  advance,  a  city 
of  gaiety,  gold  money,  twenty-five  cent  drinks,  flowers, 
Chinamen,  hospitality,  night  restaurants,  mysterious 
private  dining  rooms,  the  Bohemian  Club,  openhearted 
men  and  unrivaled  women — superb,  majestic,  hand 
somely  upholstered,  six-cylinder  self-starting  blondes, 
with  all  improvements,  including  high-tension  double 
ignition,  Prestolite  lamps,  and  four  speeds  forward  but 
no  reverse. 

That  is  the  way  I  pictured  San  Francisco,  and  that, 
with  some  slight  reservations,  is  the  way  I  found  it. 

Several  times  in  the  course  of  these  chapters,  I  have 
been  conscious  of  an  effort  to  say  something  agreeable 
about  this  city  or  that,  but  in  the  case  of  San  Francisco, 
I  find  it  necessary  to  restrain,  rather  than  force  my  ap 
preciation,  lest  I  be  charged  with  making  noises  like  a 
Native  Son. 

The  Native  Sons  of  the  Golden  West  is  a  large  and 
semi-secret  organization  of  men  born  in  California  who, 
I  was  informed,  are  banded  together  to  help  one  an 
other  and  the  State.  Its  activities  are  largely  political 
and  vocal. 

It  was  a  Native  Son  who,  when  asked  by  an  English 
man,  visiting  the  United  States  for  the  first  time,  to 

475 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

name  the  Seven  Wonders  of  America,  replied:  "Santa 
Barbara,  Coronado,  Del  Monte,  San  Francisco,  Yo- 
semite,  Lake  Tahoe  and  Mount  Shasta." 

"But,"  objected  the  visitor,  "all  those  places  are  in 
California,  aren't  they?" 

"Of  course  they  're  in  California !"  cried  the  Native 
Son.  "Where  else  would  they  be  ?" 

That  is  the  point  of  view  of  the  Native  Son  and  the 
native  Californian  in  general.  Meeting  Californians 
outside  their  State,  I  have  been  inclined  to  think  them 
boasters,  but  now,  after  a  visit  to  California,  I  have 
come  to  understand  that  they  are  nothing  of  the  kind, 
but  are,  upon  the  contrary,  adherents  of  cold  truth. 
They  want  to  tell  the  truth  about  their  State,  they  try 
to  tell  it,  and  if  they  do  not  succeed  it  is  only  because 
they  lack  the  power  of  expression.  When  it  comes  to 
California  everybody  does — a  fact  which  I  shall  now 
assist  in  demonstrating  further. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  climate.  The  exact  nature  of 
the  California  climate  had  been  a  puzzle  to  me.  I  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  considering  certain  parts  of  the 
country  as  suited  for  winter  residence,  and  certain  other 
parts  for  summer ;  but,  in  the  East,  when  I  asked  people 
about  California,  I  found  some  who  advised  it  as  a  win 
ter  substitute  for  Florida,  and  others  who  recommended 
it  as  a  summer  substitute  for  Maine. 

Therefore,  on  reaching  San  Francisco,  I  took  pains 
to  cross-examine  natives  as  to  what  they  meant  by  "cli 
mate." 

476 


The    salt-water   pool,   Olympic   Club,    San    Francisco 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

As  I  did  not  visit  Southern  California  I  shall  leave 
the  climate  of  that  section  to  the  residents,  who  are 
not  only  willing  to  describe  it,  but  who,  from  all  ac 
counts,  can  come  as  near  doing  it  adequately  as  any 
body  can.  But  in  San  Francisco  and  the  surrounding 
country  I  think  I  know  what  climate  means. 

There  are  two  seasons:  spring,  beginning  about  No 
vember  and  running  on  into  April;  autumn,  beginning 
in  April  and  filling  out  the  remaining  six  months. 
Winter  and  summer  are  simply  left  out.  There  is  no 
great  cold  (snow  has  fallen  but  six  times  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  city)  and  no  great  heat  (84  degrees  was 
the  highest  temperature  registered  during  an  unusual 
"hot  spell"  which  occurred  just  before  our  visit).  It 
is,  however,  a  celebrated  peculiarity  of  the  San  Fran 
cisco  climate  that  between  shade  and  sun  there  is  a 
difference  so  great  as  to  make  light  winter  clothing 
comfortable  on  one  side  of  the  street,  and  summer 
clothing  on  the  other.  The  most  convenient  clothing, 
upon  the  whole,  I  found  to  be  of  medium  weight,  and 
as  soon  as  the  sun  had  set  I  sometimes  felt  the  need  of  a 
light  overcoat. 

One  of  the  finest  things  about  the  California  weather 
is  its  absolute  reliability.  In  the  rainy  season  of  spring, 
rain  is  expected  and  people  go  prepared  for  it ;  but  with 
the  arrival  of  the  sunny  season,  the  rain  is  really  over, 
and  thereafter  you  need  not  fear  for  your  straw  hat  or 
your  millinery,  as  the  case  may  be. 

Small  wonder  that  the  Calif ornian  loves  to  talk  about 

477 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

his  climate.  He  loves  to  discuss  it  for  the  same  reason 
the  New  Yorker  loves  to  discuss  money:  because,  with 
him,  it  is  the  fundamental  thing.  All  through  the  West, 
but  particularly  on  the  Pacific  Coast,  men  and  women 
alike  lead  outdoor  lives,  compared  with  which  the  out 
door  lives  of  Easterners  are  labored  and  pathetic.  The 
man  or  woman  in  California  who  does  not  know  what 
it  is  to  ride  and  camp  and  shoot  is  an  anomaly.  Apropos 
of  this  love  of  outdoors,  I  am  reminded  that  the  head 
of  a  large  department  store  informed  me  that,  in  San 
Francisco,  rainy  days  bring  out  the  largest  shopping 
crowds,  because  people  like  to  spend  the  sunny  ones 
in  the  open.  Also,  I  noticed  for  myself,  that  small  shop 
keepers  think  so  much  of  the  climate  that  in  many  in 
stances  they  cannot  bear  to  bar  it  out,  even  at  night,  but 
have  permanent  screen  fronts  in  their  stores. 

All  the  year  round,  flowers  are  for  sale  at  stands  on 
corners,  in  the  San  Francisco  streets,  and  if  you  think 
we  have  no  genre  in  America,  if  you  think  there  is  noth 
ing  in  this  country  to  compare  with  your  memories  of 
picturesque  little  scenes  in  Europe  —  scenes  involving 
such  things  as  the  dog-drawn  wagons  of  Belgium; 
Dutch  girls  in  wooden  shoes,  bending  at  the  waist  to 
scrub  a  sidewalk;  embroidered  peasants  at  a  Breton  par 
don;  proud  beggars  at  an  Andalusian  railway  station; 
mysterious  hooded  Arabs  at  Gibraltar;  street  singers 
in  Naples;  flower  girls  in  the  costume  of  the  campagna, 
at  the  Spanish  Steps  in  Rome — if  you  think  we  cannot 
match  such  bits  of  color,  then  you  should  see  the  flower 

478 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

stands  of  San  Francisco  upon  some  holiday,  when  Chi 
nese  girls  are  bargaining  for  blooms. 

But  I  am  talking  only  of  this  one  part  of  California. 
When  one  considers  the  whole  State,  one  is  forced  to 
admit  that  it  is  a  natural  wonder-place.  It  is  every 
thing.  In  its  ore-filled  mountains  it  is  Alaska;  to  the 
south  it  is  South  America;  I  have  looked  out  of  a  train 
window  and  seen  a  perfect  English  park,  only  to  realize 
suddenly  that  it  had  not  been  made  by  gardeners,  but 
was  the  sublimated  landscape  gardening  which  Nature 
gave  to  this  state  of  states.  I  have  eaten  Parisian 
meals  in  San  Francisco  and  drunk  splendid  wines,  and 
afterwards  I  have  been  told  that  our  viands  and  bev 
erages  had,  without  exception,  been  produced  in  Cali 
fornia — unless  one  counts  the  gin  in  the  cocktail  which 
preceded  dinner.  But  that  is  only  part  of  it.  With 
her  hills  San  Francisco  is  Rome;  with  her  harbor  she 
is  Naples ;  with  her  hotels  she  is  New  York.  But  with 
her  clubs  and  her  people  she  is  San  Francisco — which, 
to  my  mind,  comes  near  being  the  apotheosis  of  praise. 

So  far  as  I  know  American  cities  San  Francisco 
stands  out  amongst  them  like  some  beautiful,  fascinat 
ing  creature  who  comes  suddenly  into  a  roomful  of 
mediocrities.  She  is  radiant,  she  has  charm  and  allure, 
those  qualities  which  are  gifts  of  the  gods,  and  which, 
though  we  recognize  them  instantly  when  we  meet  them, 
we  are  unable  to  describe. 

I  have  not  forgotten  the  charm  of  Detroit,  nor  the  stu- 
pendousness  of  Chicago,  but — there  is  only  one  Paris 

479 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

and  only  one  San  Francisco.  San  Francisco  does  not 
look  at  all  like  Paris,  and  while  it  has  a  large  foreign 
population  the  people  one  meets  are,  for  the  most  part, 
pure-blooded  Americans,  yet  all  the  time  I  was  there,  I 
found  myself  thinking  of  the  place  as  a  city  that  was 
somehow  foreign.  It  is  full  of  that  splendid  vigor  which 
one  learns  to  expect  of  young  American  cities;  yet  it  is 
full  of  something  else — something  Latin.  The  out 
look  upon  life  even  of  its  most  American  inhabitants 
is  touched  with  a  quality  that  is  different.  The  climate 
works  its  will  upon  them  as  climate  does  on  people 
everywhere.  Here  it  makes  them  lively  and  spontane 
ous.  They  are  able  to  do  more  (including  more  sitting 
up  at  night)  than  people  do  in  New  York,  and  it  seems 
to  tell  upon  them  less.  They  love  good  times  and,  again 
owing  to  the  climate,  they  are  able  to  have  them  out  of 
doors. 

The  story  of  the  Portola  fete,  as  told  me  by  a  San 
Franciscan,  nicely  illustrates  that,  and  also  shows  the 
San  Francisco  point  of  view. 

"In  1907,"  he  informed  me,  "we  decided  to  put  over  a 
big  out-door  New  Year's  fete,  with  dancing  in  the 
streets,  the  way  they  have  it  in  Paris  on  the  Fourteenth 
of  July.  But  at  the  last  minute  it  rained  and  spoiled  the 
outdoor  part  of  the  fun.  Once  in  a  while,  you  see,  that 
can  happen  even  in  San  Francisco. 

"Everybody  agreed  that  we  ought  to  have  a  regular  es 
tablished  festival,  and  as  we  didn't  want  to  have  it 
spoiled  a  second  time,  we  hunted  up  the  weather  records 

480 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

and  found  that  jn  the  history  of  the  city  there  had  never 
been  rain  between  October  seventeenth  and  twenty-ninth. 
That  established  the  time  for  our  fete;  the  next  thing 
was  to  discover  an  excuse  for  it.  That  was  not  so  easy. 
After  digging  through  a  lot  of  history  we  found  that 
Don  Caspar  de  Portola  discovered  San  Francisco  Bay 
October  twenty-second,  1679 — or  maybe  it  was  1769 — 
that  does  n't  matter.  .Nobody  had  ever  heard  of  Portola 
until  then,  but  now  we  have  dragged  him  out  of  oblivion 
and  made  quite  a  boy  of  him,  all  as  an  excuse  to  have  a 
good  time." 

"Then  you  don't  celebrate  New  Year's  out  here?"  I 
asked. 

"Don't  we  though!"  he  exclaimed.  "You  ought  to  be 
here  for  our  New  Year's  fete.  It  is  one  of  the  most 
spontaneous  shows  of  the  kind  you  '11  see  anywhere. 
It 's  not  a  tough  orgy  such  as  you  have  on  Broadway 
every  New  Year's  Eve,  with  a  lot  of  drunks  sitting 
around  in  restaurants  under  signs  saying  'Champagne 
Only' — I  Ve  seen  that.  We  just  have  a  lot  of  real  fun, 
mostly  in  the  streets. 

"One  thing  you  can  count  on  out  here.  We  celebrate 
everything  that  can  be  celebrated,  and  the  beauty  of  a  lot 
of  our  good  times  is  that  they  have  a  way  of  just  break 
ing  loose  instead  of  being  cooked-up  in  advance.  It  has 
often  happened  that  on  Christmas  Eve  some  great  singer 
or  musician  would  appear  in  the  streets  and  sing  or  play 
for  the  crowds.  A  hundred  thousand  people  heard  Tet- 
razzini  when  she  did  that  four  years  ago.  Bispham  and 

481 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

a  lot  of  other  big  singers  have  done  the  same  thing,  and 
three  years  ago,  on  Christmas  Eve,  Kubelik  played  for 
the  crowds  in  the  streets.  Somehow  I  think  that  musi 
cians  and  artists  of  all  kinds  have  a  warm  feeling  for 
San  Francisco,  and  want  to  show  us  that  they  have." 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  that  is  true.  Many  artists 
have  inhabited  San  Francisco,  and  the  city  has  always 
been  beloved  by  them ;  especially,  it  sometimes  seems,  by 
the  writing  group.  Mark  Twain  records  that  on  his  ar 
rival  he  "fell  in  love  with  the  most  cordial  and  sociable 
city  in  the  Union,"  and  countless  other  authors,  from 
Stevenson  down,  have  paid  their  tribute. 

As  might  be  expected  of  a  country  so  palpitantly  beau 
tiful  and  alive,  California  has  produced  many  artists  in 
literature  and  the  other  branches,  and  has  developed 
many  others  who,  having  had  the  misfortune  to  be  born 
elsewhere,  possessed,  at  least,  the  good  judgment  to  move 
to  California  while  still  in  the  formative  period. 

Sitting  around  a  table  in  a  cafe,  one  night,  with  a 
painter,  a  novelist  and  a  newspaper  man,  I  set  them  all  to 
making  lists,  from  memory,  of  persons  following  the 
arts,  who  may  be  classified  as  Californians  by  birth  or 
long  residence. 

The  four  most  prominent  painters  listed  were  Arthur 
F.  Mathews,  Charles  Rollo  Peters,  Charles  J.  Dickman 
and  Francis  McComas,  all  of  them  men  standing  very 
high  in  American  art.  Among  sculptors  were  men 
tioned  Robert  Aitken,  Arthur  Putnam,  Haig  Patigian 
and  Douglas  Tilden.  Of  writers  there  is  a  deluge. 

482 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

Besides  Mark  Twain  and  Stevenson,  the  names  of 
Bret  Harte,  Frank  Norris,  and  Joaquin  Miller  are,  of 
course,  historic  in  connection  with  the  State.  Among 
living  writers  born  in  California  were  listed  Gertrude 
Atherton,  Jack  London,  Lloyd  Osbourne,  Austin  Strong, 
Ernest  Peixotto  and  Kathleen  Norris;  while  among 
those  born  elsewhere  who  have  migrated  to  California, 
were  set  down  the  names  of  Harry  Leon  Wilson, 
Stewart  Edward  White,  James  Hopper,  Mary  Austin, 
Grace  MacGowan  Cooke,  Alice  MacGowan,  Ruf us  Steele 
and  Bertha  Runkle.  Still  another  group  of  writers  who 
do  not  now  reside  in  California  are,  nevertheless,  associ 
ated  with  the  State  because  of  having  lived  there  in  the 
past.  Among  these  are  Wallace  and  Will  Irwin,  Gelett 
Burgess,  Eleanor  Gates,  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin,  Edwin 
Markham,  George  Sterling,  Richard  Tully,  Jack  Hines 
and  Arno  Dosch. 

At  this  juncture  it  occurs  to  me  that,  quite  regardless 
of  the  truth,  I  had  better  say  that  I  have  not  set  down 
these  names  according  to  any  theories  of  mine  about  the 
order  of  their  importance,  but  that  I  have  copied  them 
off  as  they  came  to  me  on  lists  made  by  other  persons, 
who  shall  be  sheltered  to  the  last  by  anonymity. 

All  the  names  so  far  mentioned  were  furnished  by  the 
painter  and  the  novelist.  The  newspaper  man  kept  me 
waiting  a  long  time  for  his  list.  At  last  he  gave  it  to  me, 
and  lo !  Harrison  Fisher's  name  led  all  the  rest.  Henry 
Raleigh  and  Rae  Irvin,  illustrators,  were  also  listed,  but 
the  formidable  California  showing  came  with  the  cate- 

483 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

gory  of  cartoonists  and  "comic  artists"  employed  on  New 
York  newspapers.  Of  these  the  following  were  set 
down  as  products  of  the  Golden  State :  Bud  Fisher,  Igoe, 
and  James  Swinnerton  of  the  "American" ;  Tom  McNa- 
mara,  Hal  Cauffman,  George  Harriman,  Hershfield,  and 
T.  A.  Dorgan  ("Tad")  of  the  "Journal";  Goldberg  of 
the  "Evening  Mail";  R.  E.  Edgren  of  the  "World"; 
Robert  Carter  of  the  "Sun";  and  Ripley  of  the  "Globe." 
The  late  Homer  Davenport  of  the  "American"  also  came 
to  New  York  from  San  Francisco.  This  list,  covering 
as  it  does  all  but  a  handful  of  the  cartoonists  and  "funny 
men"  of  the  New  York  papers,  seems  to  me  hardly  less 
remarkable  than  this  further  list  of  "artists"  of  another 
variety  who  trace  back  to  California :  James  J.  Corbett, 
Jim  Jeffries,  Joe  Choynski,  Jimmy  Britt,  Abe  Attell, 
Willie  Ritchie,  Eddie  Hanlon  and  Frankie  Neil;  with 
Jack  Johnson  and  Stanley  Ketchell  added  for  the  reason 
that,  although  not  actual  native  products,  they  "devel 
oped"  in  California. 

Perhaps  after  having  given  California  her  artistic  due 
in  this  handsome  manner,  and  being,  myself,  well  out  of 
the  State,  this  may  be  the  best  time  to  touch  upon  a  sensi 
tive  point.  As  the  reader  may  have  observed,  I  always 
try  to  evade  responsibility  when  playing  with  fire,  and  if 
one  does  that  with  fire,  it  becomes  all  the  more  necessary 
to  observe  the  same  rule  in  the  case  of  earthquakes. 

In  this  instance  the  best  way  out  of  it  for  me  seems  to 
be  to  put  the  blame  on  Baedeker,  who,  in  his  little  red 
book,  declares  that  "earthquakes  occur  occasionally  in 

484 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

San  Francisco,  but  have  seldom  been  destructive/7  after 
which  he  recites  that  in  1906  "a  severe  earthquake  last 
ing  about  a  minute"  visited  the  city,  that  "the  City  Hall 
became  a  mass  of  ruins  but,  on  the  whole,  few  of  the 
more  solid  structures  were  seriously  injured." 

San  Francisco  is  notoriously  sensitive  upon  this  sub 
ject,  and  her  sensitiveness  is  not  difficult  to  understand. 
For  one  thing,  earthquakes,  interesting  though  they  may 
be  as  demonstrations  of  the  power  of  Nature,  are  not 
generally  considered  a  profitable  form  of  advertising  for 
a  city,  although,  curiously  enough,  they  seem,  like  vol 
canic  eruptions,  to  visit  spots  of  the  greatest  natural 
beauty.  For  another  thing  San  Francisco  feels  that 
"earthquake"  is  really  a  misnomer  for  her  disaster,  and 
that  this  fact  is  not  generally  understood  in  such  remote 
and  ill-informed  localities  as,  for  instance,  the  Island  of 
Manhattan. 

There  is  not  a  little  justice  in  this  contention.  How 
ever  the  city  may  have  been  "shaken  down"  in  the  past, 
by  corrupt  politicians,  the  quake  did  no  such  thing.  All 
the  damage  done  by  the  actual  trembling  of  the  ground 
might  have  been  repaired  at  a  cost  of  a  few  millions,  had 
not  the  quake  started  the  fire  and  at  the  same  time  de 
stroyed  the  means  of  fighting  it.  Baedeker,  always  con 
servative,  estimates  the  fire  loss  at  three  hundred  and 
fifty  millions. 

Furthermore,  it  is  contended  in  San  Francisco  that  the 
city  is  not  actually  in  the  earthquake  belt.  Scientists 
have  examined  the  earthquake's  fault-line,  and  have  de- 

485 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

clared  that  it  comes  down  the  coast  to  a  point  some  miles 
north  of  the  city,  where  it  obligingly  heads  out  to  sea, 
passing  around  San  Francisco,  and  coming  ashore  again 
far  to  the  south. 

While,  to  my  mind,  this  seems  to  indicate  an  extraor 
dinary  degree  of  good-nature  on  the  part  of  an  earth 
quake,  I  have  come,  through  a  negative  course  of  reason 
ing,  to  accept  it  as  true.  For  it  so  happens  that  I  have 
discussed  literature  with  a  considerable  number  of  scien 
tific  men,  and  I  cannot  but  conclude  from  the  experience 
that  they  must  know  an  enormous  amount  about  other 
matters.  Therefore,  on  earthquakes,  I  am  bound  en 
tirely  by  their  decisions,  and  I  believe  that  all  well- 
ordered  earthquakes  will  be  so  bound,  and  that  the  only 
chance  of  future  trouble  from  this  source,  in  San  Fran 
cisco,  might  arise  through  a  visit  from  some  irrespon 
sible,  renegade  quake  which  was  not  a  member  of  the 
regular  organization. 

As  to  San  Francisco's  "touchiness"  upon  the  subject 
there  is  this  much  more  to  be  said.  A  cow  is  rumored 
to  have  kicked  over  a  lamp  and  started  the  Chicago  Fire. 
An  earthquake  kicked  over  a  building  and  started  the 
San  Francisco  Fire.  People  do  not  refer  to  the  Chicago 
Fire  as  the  "Cow/'  Why  then  should  they  refer  to  the 
San  Francisco  Fire  as  the  "Earthquake"?  That  is  the 
way  they  reason  at  the  Golden  Gate.  But  however  that 
may  be,  the  important  fact  is  this:  the  Chicago  Fire 
taught  that  city  a  lesson.  When  Chicago  was  rebuilt 
in  brick  and  stone,  instead  of  wood,  another  cow  could 

486 


SAN  FRANCISCO 

kick  over  another  lamp  without  endangering  the  whole 
town.  The  same  story  is  repeated  in  San  Francisco. 
The  city  has  been  magnificently  reconstructed.  Another 
quake  might  kick  over  another  building,  but  the  city 
would  not  go  as  it  did  before,  because,  aside  from  the 
fact  that  the  main  part  of  it  is  now  unburnable,  as  nearly 
as  that  may  be  said  of  any  group  of  buildings,  the  most 
elaborate  system  of  fire-protection  has  been  installed,  so 
that  if,  in  future,  water  connections  are  broken  at  one 
point,  or  two  points,  or  several  points,  there  will  still  be 
plenty  of  water  from  other  sources. 

As  an  outsider,  in  love  with  San  Francisco,  who  has  yet 
had  the  temerity  to  mention  the  forbidden  word,  I  may 
perhaps  venture  a  little  farther  and  suggest  that  it  is 
time  for  sensitiveness  over  the  word  "earthquake"  to 
cease. 

Let  us  use  what  word  we  like:  the  fact  remains  that 
the  disaster  brought  out  magnificent  qualities  in  San 
Francisco's  people;  they  were  victorious  over  it;  they 
have  fortified  themselves  against  a  repetition  of  it;  they 
transformed  catastrophe  into  opportunity.  Already,  I 
think,  many  San  Franciscans  understand  that  the  cata 
clysm  was  not  an  unmixed  evil,  and  I  believe  that,  strange 
though  it  may  seem,  there  will  presently  come  a  time 
when,  for  all  their  half-melancholy  "before  the  fire"  talk, 
they  will  admit  that  on  the  whole  it  was  a  good  thing. 
For  it  is  granted  to  but  few  cities  and  few  men  to  really 
begin  life  anew. 


487 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 


"BEFORE  THE  FIRE" 

SAN  FRANCISCANS  love  to  show  their  city  off. 
Nevertheless  they  take  a  curious  delight  in  coun 
tering  against  the  enthusiasm  of  the  alien  with  a 
solemn  wag  of  the  head  and  the  invariable : 

'seen 


'Ah,  but  you  should  have  -< 


felt 
tasted 


•  it  before  the  Fire !" 


smelled 
.heard    , 

They  say  that  about  everything,  old  and  new.  They 
say  it  indiscriminately,  without  thought  of  what  it  means. 
They  love  the  sound  of  it,  and  have  made  it  a  fixed  habit. 
They  say  it  about  districts  and  buildings,  about  hotels, 
and  the  Barbary  Coast  (which  is  much  like  the  old 
Bowery,  in  New  York,  and  where  ragtime  dancing  is  said 
to  have  originated),  and  the  Presidio  (the  military  post, 
overlooking  the  sea),  and  Golden  Gate  Park  (a  semi- 
tropical  wonder-place,  built  on  what  used  to  be  sand 
dunes,  and  guarded  by  Park  Policemen  who  carry  lassos 
with  which  to  stop  runaways),  and  Chinatown,  and  the 
Fish  Market  (which  resembles  a  collection  of  still-life 
studies  by  William  M.  Chase),  and  the  Bank  Exchange 

488 


."BEFORE  THE  FIRE" 

(which  is  not  a  commercial  institution,  but  a  venerable 
bar,  presided  over  by  Duncan  Nicol,  who  came  around 
the  Horn  with  his  eye-glasses  over  his  ear,  where  he 
continues  to  wear  them  while  mixing  Pisco  cocktails). 
They  say  it  also  of  "Ernie"  and  his  celebrated  "Number 
Two"  cocktail,  with  a  hazelnut  in  it;  and  of  the  St.  Fran 
cis  Hotel  (which  is  one  of  the  best  run  and  most  per 
fectly  cosmopolitan  hotels  in  the  country),  and  of  the 
Fairmont  Hotel  (a  wonderful  pile,  commanding  the  city 
and  the  bay  as  Bertolini's  commands  the  city  and  the  bay 
of  Naples),  and  the  Palace  Hotel   (where  drinks  are 
twenty-five  cents  each,  as  in  the  old  days;  where  ripe 
olives  are  a  specialty,  and  where,  over  the  bar,  hangs 
Maxfield  Parrish's  "Pied  Piper,"  balancing  the  conti 
nent  against  his  "Old  King  Cole,"  in  the  Knickerbocker 
bar,  in  New  York).     They  say  it  about  the  Cliff  House, 
(with  its  Sorrento  setting,  its  seals  barking  on  the  rocks 
below,    and    its    hectic    turkey-trotting   nights),    about 
Tait's,  and  Solari's,  and  the  Techau,  and  Frank's,  and 
the  Poodle  Dog,  and  Marchand's,  and  Coppa's,  and  all 
the  other  restaurants;  about  the  private  dining-rooms 
(which  are  a  San  Francisco  specialty),  about  the  pretty 
girls    (which  are  another   specialty),  about  the  clubs 
(which  are  still  another),  about  cable-cars,   taxicabs, 
flowers,  shrimps,  crabs,  sand-dabs  (which  are  fish  almost 
as  good  as  English  sole),  and  about  everything  else. 
They  use  it  instead  of  "if  you  please,"  "thank  you," 
"good-morning,"  and  "good-night."     If  there  are  no 
strangers  to  say  it  to  they  say  it  to  one  another.     If  you 

489 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

admire  a  man's  wife  and  children  he  will  say  it,  and 
the  same  thing  occurs  if  you  approve  of  his  new  hat. 

If  the  old  San  Francisco  was  indeed  so  far  superior  to 
the  new,  then  Bagdad  in  the  days  of  Haroun-al-Raschid 
would  have  been  but  a  dull  prairie  town,  compared  with 
it. 

But  was  it? 

The  San  Francisco  attitude  upon  this  subject  reminds 
me  of  that  of  the  old  French  Royalists. 

A  friend  of  mine,  an  American  living  in  Paris,  hap 
pened  to  inquire  of  a  venerable  Marquis  concerning  the 
Palais  de  Glace,  where  Parisians  go  to  skate. 

"Ah,  yes,"  replied  the  ancient  aristocrat,  raising  his 
shoulders  contemptuously,  "one  hears  that  the  world 
now  goes  to  skate  under  a  roof,  upon  ice  manufactured. 
Truly,  all  is  changed,  my  friend.  I  assure  you  it  was 
not  like  this  under  the  Empire.  In  those  times  the  lakes 
in  the  Bois  used  to  freeze.  But  they  do  so  no  longer. 
It  is  not  to  be  expected.  Bah !  This  sacre  Republic !" 

While  in  San  Francisco,  I  noted  down  a  number  of 
odd  items,  some  of  them  unimportant,  which,  when  added 
together,  have  much  to  do  with  the  flavor  of  the  town. 
Having  used  the  word  "flavor/'  I  may  as  well  begin  with 
drinks. 

Drinks  cut  an  important  figure  in  San  Francisco  life, 
as  is  natural  in  a  wine-producing  country.  The  merit  of 
the  best  California  wines  is  not  appreciated  in  the  East. 
Some  of  them  are  very  good — much  better,  indeed,  than 

490 


"BEFORE  THE  FIRE" 

a  great  deal  of  the  imported  wine  brought  from  Europe. 
I  have  even  tasted  a  California  champagne  which  com 
pares  creditably  with  the  ordinary  run  of  French  cham 
pagne,  though  when  it  comes  to  special  vintages,  Cali 
fornia  has  not  attained  the  French  level. 

It  is  a  general  custom,  in  public  bars  and  clubs  to 
shake  dice  for  drinks,  instead  of  clamoring  to  "treat," 
according  to  the  silly  eastern  custom,  which  as  every  one 
knows,  often  causes  men  to  drink  more  than  they  wish 
to,  just  to  be  "good  fellows."  The  free  lunch,  in  con 
nection  with  bars,  is  developed  more  highly  in  San  Fran 
cisco  than  in  any  other  city  that  I  know  of;  also,  East 
erners  will  be  surprised  to  find  small  onions,  or  nuts,  in 
their  cocktails,  instead  of  olives.  A  popular  cocktail  on 
the  Coast  is  the  "Honolulu,"  wrhich  is  like  the  familiar 
"Bronx,"  excepting  that  pineapple  juice  is  used  in  place 
of  orange  juice. 

When  my  companion  and  I  were  in  San  Francisco  a 
prohibition  wave  was  threatening.  Such  a  movement  in 
a  wine-producing  country  engenders  very  strong  feeling, 
and  I  found,  attached  to  the  bills-of-f are  in  various  res 
taurants,  earnest  pleas,  addressed  to  voters,  to  turn  out 
and  cast  their  ballots  against  the  temperance  menace. 

Of  prohibition  the  town  had  already  had  a  taste — if 
one  may  use  the  expression.  The  reform  movement 
had  struck  the  Barbary  Coast,  the  rule,  at  the  time  of  our 
visit,  being  that  there  should  be  no  dancing  where  alco 
holic  drinks  were  served,  and  no  drinks  where  there  was 
dancing.  This  law  was  enforced  and  it  made  the  former 

491 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

region  of  festivity  a  sad  place.  Even  the  sailors  and 
marines  sitting  about  the  dance-halls,  consuming  beer- 
substitutes,  at  a  dollar  a  bottle,  were  melancholy  figures, 
appearing  altogether  unresponsive  to  the  sirens  who 
surrounded  them. 

Ordinary  drinks  at  most  bars  in  San  Francisco  are 
fifteen  cents  each,  or  two  for  a  quarter,  as  in  most  other 
cities.  That  is  to  say,  two  drinks  for  "two  bits." 

Like  the  American  mill,  or  the  English  Guinea,  the 
"bit,"  familiar  on  the  Pacific  Slope,  is  not  a  coin.  The 
Californian  will  ask  for  change  for  a  "quarter,"  or  a 
"half,"  as  we  do  in  the  East,  but  in  making  small  pur 
chases  he  will  ask  for  two,  or  four,  or  six  "bits'  worth," 
a  "bit"  representing  twelve-and-a-half  cents.  In  the 
old  days  there  were  also  "short  bits"  and  "long  bits," 
meaning,  respectively  ten  cents,  and  fifteen  cents,  but 
these  terms  with  their  implied  scorn  of  the  copper  cent, 
have  died  out. 

The  humble  penny  is,  however,  still  regarded  con 
temptuously  in  San  Francisco.  Until  quite  recently  all 
newspapers  published  there  sold  at  five  cents  each,  and 
that  is  still  true  of  the  morning  papers,  the  "Chronicle" 
and  the  "Examiner."  Lately  the  "Call"  and  the  "Bulle 
tin,"  evening  papers,  have  dropped  in  price  to  one  cent 
each,  but  when  the  princely  Son  of  the  Golden  West  buys 
them,  he  will  frequently  pay  the  newsboy  with  a  nickel, 
ignoring  the  change.  Nor  is  the  newsboy  to  be  outdone 
in  magnificence :  when  a  five-cent  customer  asks  for  one 
paper  the  boy  will  very  likely  hand  him  both.  They  un- 

492 


"BEFORE  THE  FIRE" 

derstand  each  other,  these  two,  and  meet  on  terms  of  a 
noble  mutual  liberality. 

As  to  Chinatown,  those  who  knew  it  before  the  fire  de 
clare  that  its  charm  is  gone,  but  my  companion  and  I 
found  interest  in  its  shops,  its  printing  offices  and,  most 
of  all,  in  its  telephone  exchange. 

The  San  Francisco  Telephone  Directory  has  a  section 
devoted  to  Chinatown,  in  which  the  names  of  Chinese 
subscribers  are  printed  in  both  English  and  Chinese 
characters.  Thus,  if  I  wish  to  telephone  to  Boo  Gay, 
Are  Too,  Chew  Chu  &  Co.,  Doo  Kee,  Fat  Hoo,  the 
Gee  How  Tong,  Gum  Hoo,  Hang  Far  Low,  Jew  Bark, 
Joke  Key,  King  Gum,  Shee  Duck  Co.,  Tin  Hop  &  Co., 
To  To  Bete  Shy,  Too  Too  Guey,  Wee  Chun,  Wing  On  & 
Co.,  Yet  Bun  Hung,  Yet  Ho,  Yet  You,  or  Yue  Hock,  all 
of  whom  I  find  in  the  directory — if  I  wish  to  telephone  to 
them,  I  can  look  them  up  in  English  and  call  "China  148," 
or  whatever  the  number  may  be.  But  if  a  Chinaman 
who  cannot  read  English  wishes  to  call,  he  calls  by  name 
only,  which  makes  it  necessary  for  operators  to  remem 
ber  not  merely  the  name  and  number  of  each  Chinese 
subscriber,  but  to  speak  English  and  Chinese — including 
the  nine  Chinese  provincial  dialects. 

The  operators  are,  of  course,  Chinese  girls,  and  the 
exchange,  which  has  over  a  thousand  subscribers,  repre 
senting  about  a  tenth  of  the  population  of  the  Chinese 
district,  is  under  the  management  of  Mr.  Loo  Kum  Shu, 
who  was  born  in  California  and  educated  at  the  Uni 
versity  of  California.  His  assistant,  Mr.  Chin  Sing, 

493 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

is  also  a  native  of  the  State,  and  is  a  graduate  of  the  San 
Francisco  public  schools. 

For  a  "soulless  corporation"  the  Pacific  Telephone  and 
Telegraph  Company  has  shown  a  good  deal  of  imagina 
tion  in  constructing  and  equipping  its  Chinatown  ex 
change.  The  building  with  its  gaily  decorated  pagoda 
roof  and  balconies,  makes  a  colorful  spot  in  the  center  of 
Chinatown.  Inside  it  is  elaborately  frescoed  with  drag 
ons  and  other  Chinese  designs,  while  the  woodwork 
is  of  ebony  and  gold.  The  switchboard  is  carved  and  is 
set  in  a  shrine,  and  this  fascinating  incongruity,  with 
the  operators,  all  dressed  in  the  richly  colored  silk  cos 
tumes  of  their  ancient  civilization,  poking  in  plugs,  pull 
ing  them  out,  chattering  now  in  English,  now  in  Chinese, 
teaches  one  that  anachronism  may,  under  some  condi 
tions,  be  altogether  charming. 

One  rumor  concerning  San  Francisco  restaurants  ap 
pealed  to  my  sinful  literary  imaginings.  I  had  heard 
that  these  establishments  resembled  those  of  Paris,  not 
only  in  cuisine,  but  because,  as  in  Paris,  the  proprietors 
did  not  deem  it  necessary  to  stipulate  that  private  dining- 
rooms  should  never  be  occupied  save  by  parties  of  more 
than  two. 

Of  one  of  these  restaurants,  in  particular,  I  had  been 
told  the  most  amazing  tales:  A  taxi  would  drive  into 
the  building  by  a  sort  of  tunnel;  great  doors  would  close 
instantly  behind  it ;  it  would  run  onto  a  large  elevator  and 

494 


"BEFORE  THE  FIRE" 

be  taken  bodily  to  some  floor  above,  where  the  occupants 
would  alight  practically  at  the  door  of  their  clandestine 
meeting-place — an  exquisite  little  apartment,  decorated 
like  the  boudoir  of  some  royal  favorite.  If  it  were  in 
deed  true  that  such  a  picturesquely  shocking  place  ex 
isted,  I  intended — entirely  in  the  interest  of  my  readers, 
you  will  understand — to  see  it;  and  honesty  forces  me 
to  add  that  I  hoped,  with  journalistic  immorality,  that  it 
did  exist. 

One  night  I  went  there.  True,  the  conditions  were 
somewhat  prosaic.  It  was  quite  late ;  my  companion  and 
I  were  tired,  but  we  were  near  the  end  of  our  stay  in  San 
Francisco,  and  I  insisted  upon  his  accompanying  me  to 
the  mysterious  cafe,  although  he  protested  violently — not 
on  moral  grounds,  but  because  he  is  sufficiently  sophis 
ticated  to  know  that  there  is  no  subject  upon  which  ex 
aggeration  gives  itself  carte  blanche  as  it  does  when  de 
scribing  gilded  vice. 

The  taxi  did  drive  in  through  a  kind  of  tunnel — a  place 
suggesting  coal  wagons — but  there  were  no  massive, 
silent  doors  to  close  behind  it.  Passing  into  an  inner 
court,  which  was  like  an  empty  garage,  it  stopped  beside 
a  little  door. 

"Where  is  the  elevator  ?"  I  asked  the  taxi  driver. 

"In  there/'  he  answered,  indicating  the  door. 

"But,"  I  complained,  "I  heard  that  there  was  a  big  ele 
vator  here,  that  took  taxis  right  up  stairs." 

"There  ain't,"  he  said,  succinctly. 

495 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Telling  him  to  wait,  we  entered  the  door  and  came 
upon  an  elevator  and  a  solitary  waiter,  whom  we  in 
formed  of  our  desire  to  see  the  place. 

Obligingly  he  took  us  to  an  upper  floor  and  opening 
the  door  of  an  apartment,  showed  us  in. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "all  of  them  are  not  so  fine  as 
this." 

Alas  for  my  imaginings,  here  was  no  rose-pink  bou 
doir,  no  scene  for  a  romantic  meeting,  but  a  room  like 
one  of  those  frightful  parlor  "sets"  one  sometimes  sees 
in  the  cheapest  moving  pictures.  However,  in  the 
movies  one  is  spared  the  color  of  such  a  room ;  one  may 
see  that  the  wallpaper  is  of  hideous  design,  but  one  can 
not  see  its  ghastly  scrambled  browns  and  greens  and 
purples.  As  I  glanced  at  the  various  furnishings  it 
seemed  to  me  that  each  was  uglier  than  the  last,  and 
when  finally  my  eye  fell  upon  an  automatic  piano  in  a 
sort  of  combination  of  dark  oak  and  art  nouveau,  with  a 
stained  glass  front  and  a  nickel  in  the  slot  attachment, 
my  dream  of  a  setting  for  sumptuous  and  esthetic  sin 
was  dead.  It  was  a  room  in  which  adventure  would 
taste  like  stale  beer. 

My  companion  placed  a  nickel  in  the  slot  that  fed  the 
terrible  piano.  There  was  a  whirring  sound,  succeeded, 
not  by  low  seductive  strains,  but  by  a  sudden  din  of  rag 
time  which  crashed  upon  our  ears  as  the  decorations  had 
upon  our  eyes. 

Hastily  I  moved  towards  the  door.  My  companion 
followed. 

496 


The  switchboard  of  the  Chinatown  telephone^  exchange  is  set 
in  a  shrine  and  the  operators  are  dressed  in  Chinese  silks 


"BEFORE  THE  FIRE" 

"If  the  gentlemans  would  wish  to  see  some  other  apart 
ments —  ?"  suggested  the  obliging  waiter,  as  we  closed 
the  door. 

"Oh,  no  thanks,"  I  said.  "This  gives  us  a  good  idea 
of  it." 

As  we  moved  towards  the  elevator  the  waiter  asked 
politely:  "The  gentlemans  have  never  been  in  here  be 
fore?" 

"No,"  I  said,  "we  don't  live  in  San  Francisco.  We 
had  heard  about  this  place  and  wanted  to  see  it  before  we 
went  away." 

"It  is  a  famous  place,"  he  said.  Then,  with  a  shake 

of  the  head,  he  added,  "But  before  the  Fire Ah, 

the  gentlemans  should  have  seen  it  then!" 


497 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 
AN  EXPOSITION  AND  A  "BOOSTER" 

THE  Panama  Pacific  Exposition  will  unquestion 
ably  be  the  most  beautiful  exposition  ever  held 
in  the  world.     Its  setting  is  both  accessible  and 
lovely,  for  it  has  the  city  upon  one  side  and  the  bay  and 
the  Golden  Gate  upon  the  other. 

Instead  of  being  smooth  and  white  like  those  of  prev 
ious  World's  Fairs,  the  buildings  have  the  streaked  tex 
ture  of  travertine  stone,  with  a  general  coloring  some 
what  warmer  than  that  of  travertine.  Domes,  door 
ways  and  other  architectural  details  are  rich  in  soft 
greens  and  blues,  and  the  whole  group  of  buildings, 
viewed  from  the  hills  behind,  resembles  more  than  any 
thing  else  a  great  architectural  drawing  by  Jules  Guerin, 
made  into  a  reality.  And  that,  in  effect,  is  what  it  is, 
for  Guerin  has  ruled  over  everything  that  has  to  do  with 
color,  from  the  roads  which  will  have  a  warm  reddish 
tone,  to  the  mural  decorations  and  the  lighting. 

The  exposition  will  hold  certain  records  from  the 
start,  It  will  be  the  first  great  exposition  ever  held  in  a 
seaport.  It  will  be,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  first  to  be  ready 
on  time.  It  will  be  the  first  held  to  celebrate  a  contempo 
raneous  event,  and  its  contemporaneousness  will  be  re- 

498 


AN  EXPOSITION  AND  A  "BOOSTER" 

fleeted  in  its  exhibitions,  for,  with  the  exception  of  a  loan 
collection  of  art,  nothing  will  be  shown  which  has  not 
been  produced  since  the  St.  Louis  Exposition  of  1904. 
Also,  I  am  informed,  it  is  the  first  American  exposition 
to  have  an  appropriation  for  mural  paintings.  True, 
there  were  mural  paintings  at  the  Chicago  World's  Fair, 
but  they  were  not  provided  for  by  appropriation,  having 
been  paid  for  by  the  late  Frank  Millet,  with  money  saved 
from  other  things. 

Of  the  painters  who  will  have  mural  decorations  at 
the  Exposition,  but  one,  Frank  Brangwyn,  is  not  an 
American.  Also,  but  one  is  a  Californian,  that  one  be 
ing  Arthur  F.  Mathews. 

The  only  mural  decorations  in  the  Fine  Arts  Building 
will  be  eight  enormous  panels  by  Robert  Reid,  in  the  in 
terior  of  the  dome,  eighty  feet  above  the  floor.  Four  of 
the  panels  symbolize  Art;  the  others  the  "four  golds  of 
California":  poppies,  citrus  fruits,  metallic  gold  and 
golden  wheat.  Among  the  various  excursions  to  the 
Exposition,  I  hope  there  will  be  one  for  old-school  mural 
decorators — men  who  paint  stiff  central  figures  in  brick- 
red  robes,  enthroned,  and  surrounded  by  cog-wheels,  pro 
pellers,  and  bales  of  cotton,  with  the  invariable  male  fig 
ures  petrified  at  a  forge  upon  one  side,  and  the  invariable 
inert  mothers  and  children  upon  the  other — I  hope  there 
will  be  an  excursion  to  take  such  painters  out  and  show 
them  the  brave  swirl  and  sweep  of  line,  the  light,  and  the 
nacreous  color  which  this  artist  has  thrown  into  his 
decorations  at  the  Fair. 

499 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

Aside  from  the  work  of  Mr.  Reid,  Edward  Simmons 
has  done  two  large  frieze  panels  of  great  beauty,  Frank 
Vincent  Du  Mond,  two  others,  Childe  Hassam,  a  lunette 
in  most  exquisite  tones,  and  William  de  Leftwich  Dodge, 
Milton  H.  Bancroft  and  Charles  Holloway,  other  can 
vases,  so  that,  the  finished  exposition  will  be  fairly  jew 
eled  with  mural  paintings. 

It  is  hard  to  write  about  expositions  and  mural  paint 
ings,  without  seeming  to  infringe  upon  the  prerogatives 
of  Baedeker,  and  it  is  particularly  difficult  to  do  so  if  one 
has  happened  to  be  shown  about  by  a  professional 
shower-about  of  the  singularly  voluble  type  we  encoun 
tered  at  the  Exposition. 

To  the  reader  who  has  followed  my  companion  and 
me  in  our  peregrinations,  now  drawing  to  a  close,  it  will 
be  unnecessary  to  say  that  by  the  time  we  reached  the 
Pacific  Coast,  we  believed  we  had  encountered  every  kind 
of  "booster"  that  creeps,  crawls,  walks,  crows,  cries, 
bellows,  barks  or  brays. 

But  we  had  not.  It  remained  for  the  San  Francisco 
Exposition  to  show  us  a  new  specimen,  the  most  amaz 
ing,  the  most  appalling,  the  most  unbelievable  of  all :  the 
booster  who  talks  like  a  book. 

It  was  on  the  day  before  we  left  for  home  that  we  were 
delivered  up  to  him.  We  had  been  keeping  late  hours, 
and  were  tired  in  a  happy,  drowsy  sort  of  way,  so  that 
the  prospect  of  being  wafted  through  the  morning  sun 
shine  to  the  exposition  grounds,  in  an  open  automobile, 
and  cruising  about,  among  the  buildings,  without  alight- 

500 


AN  EXPOSITION  AND  A  "BOOSTER" 

ing,  and  without  care  or  worry,  was  particularly  pleas 
ing  to  us. 

The  automobile  came  at  the  appointed  hour,  and  with 
it  the  being  who  was  to  be  our  pilot.  Full  of  confidence 
and  trust,  we  got  into  the  car,  but  we  had  not  proceeded 
more  than  a  few  blocks,  and  heard  our  cicerone  speak 
more  than  a  few  hundred  thousand  words,  before  our 
bosoms  became  filled  with  that  "vague  unrest"  which, 
though  you  may  never  have  experienced  it  yourself,  you 
have  certainly  read  about  before. 

I  had  not  planned  to  have  any  vague  unrest  in  this 
book,  but  it  stole  in  upon  me,  unexpectedly,  out  there  by 
the  Golden  Gate,  just  at  the  end  of  my  journey,  when  I 
was  off  my  guard,  believing  that  the  perils  of  the  trip 
were  past. 

We  had  driven  in  that  automobile  but  a  few  minutes, 
and  had  heard  our  guide  speak  not  more  than  two  hun 
dred  and  fifty  or  three  hundred  thousand  words,  when 
my  first  vague  feeling  turned  into  a  certainty  that  all 
was  not  for  the  best;  and  when  I  caught  the  eye  of  my 
companion  and  saw  that  its  former  drowsy  look  had 
given  place  to  one  of  wild  alarm,  I  knew  that  he  shared 
my  apprehension. 

By  the  time  we  reached  the  fair  grounds  I  had  be 
come  so  perturbed  that  I  hardly  knew  where  we  were. 

"Stop  here,"  I  heard  our  captor  say  to  the  chauffeur. 

The  car  drew  up  between  two  glorious  terracotta  pal 
aces.  Directly  ahead  was  the  blue  bay,  and  beyond  it 
rose  Mount  Tamalpais  in  a  gray-green  haze.  Our  cus- 

501 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

todian  arose  from  his  seat,  stepped  to  the  front  of  the 
tonneau,  and  turning,  fixed  first  one  of  us  and  then 
the  other  with  a  gaze  that  seemed  to  eat  its  way  into 
our  vitals.  Through  an  awful  moment  of  portentous 
silence  we  stared  back  at  him  like  fascinated  idiots.  He 
raised  one  arm  and  swept  it  around  the  horizon.  Then, 
of  a  sudden,  he  was  off : 

"Born  a  drowsy  Spanish  hamlet,  fed  on  the  intoxi 
cants  of  man's  lust  for  gold,  developed  by  an  adven 
turous  and  a  baronial  agriculture,  isolated  throughout 
its  turbulent  history  from  the  home  lands  of  its  diverse 
peoples,  and  compelled  to  the  outworking  of  its  own 
ethical  and  social  standards,  the  sovereign  City  of  San 
Francisco  has  developed  within  her  confines  an  indi 
viduality  and  a  versatility,  equaled  by  but  few  other 
cities,  and  surpassed  by  none." 

At  that  point  he  took  a  breath,  and  a  fresh  start : 

"It  mellowed  the  sternness  of  the  Puritan  and  dis 
ciplined  the  dashing  Cavalier.  It  appropriated  the  un 
rivaled  song  and  pristine  art  of  the  Latin.  Every  good 
thing  the  Anglo-Saxon,  Celt,  Gaul,  Iberian,  Teuton  or 
almond-eyed  son  of  Confucius  had  to  offer,  it  seized 
upon  and  made  part  of  its  life." 

Another  breath,  and  it  began  again: 

"Here  is  no  thralldom  of  the  past,  but  a  trying  of  all 
things  on  their  merits,  and  a  searching  of  every  pro 
posal  or  established  institution  by  the  one  test:  Will 
it  make  life  happier  ?  " 

As  he  went  on  I  was  becoming  conscious  of  an  over- 

502 


AN  EXPOSITION  AND  A  "BOOSTER" 

mastering  desire  to  do  something  to  stop  him.  I  felt 
that  I  must  interrupt  to  save  my  reason,  so  I  pointed  in 
the  direction  of  Mount  Tamalpais,  and  cried: 

"What  is  that,  over  there?" 

His  eyes  barely  flickered  towards  the  mountain,  as 
he  answered: 

"That  is  Mount  Tamalpais  which  may  be  reached  by 
a  journey  of  nineteen  miles  by  ferry,  electric  train  and 
steam  railroad.  This  lofty  height  rears  itself  a  clean 
half-mile  above  the  sparkling  waters  of  our  unrivaled 
bay.  The  mountain  itself  is  a  domain  of  delight. 
From  its  summit  the  visitor  may  see  what  might  be 
termed  the  ground  plan  of  the  greatest  landlocked  har 
bor  on  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  of  the  region  surrounding 
it — a  region  destined  to  play  so  large  a  part  in  the  af 
fairs  of  men." 

"Good  God!"  I  heard  my  companion  ejaculate  in  an 
agonized  whisper. 

But  if  our  tormentor  overheard  he  paid  not  the  least 
attention. 

"We  know,"  he  continued  in  his  sing-song  tone,  "that 
you  will  find  here  what  you  never  found,  and  never  can 
find,  elsewhere.  We  shall  try  to  augment  your  pleasure 
by  indicating  something  of  its  origin  in  the  city's  ro 
mantic  past.  We  shall  give  you  your  bearings  in  time 
and  place.  We  shall  endeavor  to  make  smooth  your 
path.  We  shall  tell  you  what  to  seek  and  how  to  find 
it,  and  mayhap,  what  it  means.  We  shall  endeavor 
to  endow  you  with  the  eyes  to  see,  the  ears  to  hear, 

503 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

and  the  heart  to  understand.  In  short,  it  is  to  help 
the  visitor  to  comprehend,  appreciate  and  enjoy  'the 
City  Loved  Around  the  World/  with  its  surpassingly 
beautiful  environs,  that  this  little  handbook  is  issued." 

"That  what?"  shrieked  my  companion. 

The  human  guidebook  calmly  corrected  himself. 

"That  I  am  here  with  you  to-day/'  he  said. 

Through  two  interminable  hours  the  thing  went  on 
and  on  like  that.  Several  times,  in  the  first  hour,  we 
tried  to  stop  him  by  this  means  or  that,  but  after  awhile 
we  learned  that  interruptions  only  opened  other  flood 
gates,  and  that  it  was  best,  upon  the  whole,  to  try  to 
cultivate  a  state  of  inner  numbness,  and  let  his  voice 
roll  on. 

Sometimes  I  fancied  that  I  was  becoming  passive  and 
resigned.  Then  suddenly  a  wave  of  hate  would  come 
boiling  up  inside  me,  and  my  fingers  would  itch  to  be  at 
the  man's  throat:  to  strangle  him,  not  rapidly,  but 
slowly,  so  that  he  would  suffer.  I  wanted  to  see  his 
tongue  hang  out,  his  eyes  bulge,  and  his  face  turn  blue; 
to  see  him  swell  up,  as  he  kept  generating  words,  inside, 
until  at  last,  being  unable  to  emit  them,  he  should  burst, 
like  an  overcharged  balloon. 

Once  or  twice  I  was  on  the  verge  of  leaping  at  him, 
but  then  I  would  think  to  myself:  "No;  I  must  not 
consider  my  own  pleasure.  If  I  kill  him  it  will  get  into 
the  New  York  papers,  and  my  family  and  friends  will 
not  understand  it,  because  they  have  not  heard  him 

talk." 

504 


We  believed  we  had  encountered  every  kind  of  "booster"  that  creeps, 
crawls,  walks,  crows,  cries,  bellows,  barks  or  brays,  but  it  remained  for 
the  Exposition  to  show  us  a  new  specimen 


AN  EXPOSITION  AND  A  "BOOSTER" 

Somehow  or  other  my  companion  and  I  managed  to 
survive  until  lunch  time,  but  then  we  insisted  upon  be 
ing  taken  back  to  the  St.  Francis.  He  did  not  want  to 
take  us.  He  did  not  like  to  let  us  escape,  even  for  an 
hour,  for  it  was  only  too  evident  that  several  five-foot- 
shelves  of  books  were  still  inside  him,  eager  to  get 
out. 

At  the  door  of  the  hotel  he  said:  "I  could  stop  and 
lunch  with  you.  In  that  way  we  would  lose  no  time. 
Ah,  there  is  so  much  to  be  told !  What  city  in  the  world 
can  vie  with  San  Francisco  either  in  the  beauty  or  the 
natural  advantages  of  her  situation?  Indeed  there  are 
but  two  places  in  Europe — Constantinople  and  Gibraltar 
— that  combine  an  equally  perfect  landscape  with  what 
may  be  called  an  equally  imperial  position.  Yes,  I  think 
we  had  better  remain  together  during  this  brief  midday 
period  at  which,  from  time  immemorial,  it  has  been  the 
custom  of  the  human  race  to  minister  to  the  wants  of  the 
inner  man,  as  the  great  bard  puts  it." 

"Thank  you,"  said  my  companion,  firmly.  "We  ap 
preciate  the  offer,  but  we  have  an  engagement  to  lunch, 
to-day,  with  several  friends  who  are  troubled  with  bu 
bonic  plague  and  Asiatic  cholera." 

"So  be  it,"  said  our  warden.  "I  shall  return  for  you 
within  the  hour.  It  shall  be  my  pleasure,  as  well  as 
my  duty,  to  show  you  all  points  of  interest,  to  give  you 
a  brief  historical  sketch  of  this  coveted  Mecca  of  men's 
dreams,  to  tell  you  of  its  awakening,  of  the  bringing  of 
order  out  of  chaos,  of  .  .  ." 

505 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

It  was  still  going  on  as  we  entered  the  hotel,  and  from 
a  window,  we  saw  that  he  was  sitting  alone  in  the  ton- 
neau,  talking  to  himself,  as  the  motor  drove  away. 

"How  long  will  it  take  you  to  pack?"  my  companion 
asked  me. 

"About  an  hour,"  I  said. 

"There  's  a  train  for  New  York  at  two,"  said  he. 

We  moved  over  to  the  porter's  desk,  and  were  ar 
ranging  for  tickets  and  reservations  when  the  Exposi 
tion  Official,  who  had  assigned  our  guide  to  us,  passed 
through  the  lobby. 

"Did  you  enjoy  your  morning?"  he  inquired. 

We  gazed  at  him  for  a  moment,  in  silence.  Then,  in 
a  hoarse  voice,  I  managed  to  say:  "We  shall  not  go 
out  with  him  this  afternoon." 

"But  he  is  counting  on  it,"  protested  the  Official. 

"We  shall  not  go  out  with  him  this  afternoon!"  said 
my  companion,  in  a  voice  that  caused  heads  to  turn. 

"Why  not?"  inquired  the  other. 

I  was  afraid  that  my  companion  might  say  something 
rude,  so  I  replied. 

"We  are  going  away  from  here,"  I  declared. 

"Oh,"  said  the  Official,  "if  you  have  to  leave  town, 
it  can't  be  helped.  But  if  you  should  stay  in  San  Fran 
cisco  and  refuse  to  go  out  with  him  again,  it  might  hurt 
his  feelings." 

"Good !"  returned  my  companion.  "We  won't  go  un 
til  to-morrow." 


506 


CHAPTER  XL 
NEW  YORK  AGAIN 

ON  my  first  night  in  San  Francisco  I  sat  up  late, 
unpacking  and  distributing  my  things  about 
my  room;  it  was  early  morning  when  I  was 
ready  to  retire,  and  it  occurred  to  me  that  I  had  better 
leave  a  call. 

"Please  call  me  at  nine,"  I  said  to  the  telephone  opera 
tor. 

"Nine  o'clock,"  she  repeated,  and  in  a  voice  like  a  ca 
ress,  added:  "Good-night." 

It  was  very  pleasant  to  be  told  good-night,  like  that, 
even  though  the  sweet  voice  was  strange,  and  came  over 
a  wire;  for  my  companion  and  I  had  been  traveling  for 
a  long,  long  time,  and  though  the  strangers  we  had  met 
had  been  most  hospitable,  and  though  many  of  them  had 
soon  ceased  to  be  strangers,  and  had  become  friends,  and 
though  we  had  often  said — and  not  without  sincerity — 
that  we  "felt  very  much  at  home,"  we  had  now  reached  a 
state  of  mind  in  which  we  realized  that,  to  say  one  "feels 
at  home"  when  one  is  not  actually  at  home,  is,  after  all, 
to  stretch  the  truth  a  little. 

I  must  have  gone  to  sleep  immediately  and  I  knew 
nothing  more  until  I  was  awakened  in  the  morning  by 
the  tinkle  of  the  telephone. 

507 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

I  jumped  out  of  bed  and  answered. 

" Good-morning,  Mr.  Street/'  came  a  voice  even 
sweeter  than  that  of  the  night  before.  "Nine  o'clock." 

As  I  may  have  mentioned  previously,  I  do  not,  as  a 
rule,  feel  cheerful  on  the  moment  of  arising,  especially 
in  a  strange  room,  a  strange  hotel,  and  a  strange  city. 
But  the  pleasant  personal  note  contained  in  that  morn 
ing  greeting,  the  charming  tone  in  which  it  was  deliv 
ered,  and  perhaps,  in  addition,  the  great  warm  patch 
of  melted  California  gold  which  lay  upon  the  carpet  near 
my  window — these  things  combined  to  make  me  feel 
awake,  alive  and  happy,  at  the  beginning  of  the  day. 

Every  night,  after  that,  I  left  a  call,  whether  I  really 
wished  to  be  called,  or  not,  just  for  the  sake  of  the 
"good-night,"  and  the  "good-morning"  with  my  name  ap 
pended.  For  it  is  very  pleasant  to  be  known,  in  a  great 
hotel,  as  something  more  than  a  mere  number. 

I  said  to  myself,  "That  morning  operator  has  learned 
from  the  papers  that  I  am  here.  She  has  probably  read 
things  I  have  written,  and  is  interested  in  me.  Doubt 
less  she  boasts  to  her  friends:  'Julian  Street,  the  au 
thor,  is  stopping  down  at  the  hotel.  I  call  him  every 
morning.  He  has  a  pleasant  voice.  I  wish  I  could  see 
him,  once/  ' 

Because  of  modesty  I  did  not  mention  this  flattering 
attention  to  my  companion  until  the  day  before  we  left 
San  Francisco,  and  then  I  was  only  induced  to  speak  of 
it  by  something  which  occurred  when  we  were  shopping. 

It  was  at  Gump's — that  most  fascinating  Oriental 

508 


NEW  YORK  AGAIN 

store — and  having  made  a  purchase  which  I  wished 
them  to  deliver,  I  mentioned  my  name  and  address  to 
the  clerk  who,  however,  seemed  to  have  some  difficulty  in 
getting  it  correctly,  setting  me  down  at  first  as  "Mr. 
Julius  Sweet." 

When  my  companion  chose  to  taunt  me  about  that, 
dwelling  with  apparent  delight  upon  the  painfully  evi 
dent  fact  that  my  name  meant  nothing  to  the  clerk,  I  re 
torted  : 

'That  makes  no  difference.  The  telephone  operator 
at  the  St.  Francis  calls  me  by  name  every  morning." 

"So  she  does  me,"  he  returned. 

I  did  not  believe  him.  I  could  not  think  that  this 
beautiful  young  girl — I  was  sure  that  any  girl  with  such 
a  voice  must  be  young  and  beautiful — would  cheapen  her 
vocal  favors  by  dispensing  them  broadcast.  For  her  to 
coo  my  name  to  me  each  morning  was  merely  a  delicate 
attention,  but  for  her  to  do  the  same  to  him  seemed, 
somehow,  brazen. 

I  pondered  the  matter  as  I  went  to  bed  that  night,  and 
in  the  morning,  when  the  bell  rang,  I  thought  of  it  im 
mediately. 

"Hello." 

"Good-morning,  Mr.  Street.  Eight  o'clock,"  came 
the  mellifluous  cadences. 

"Good-morning,"  I  replied.  "This  is  the  last  time  you 
will  call  me,  so  I  want  to  say  good-by,  and  thank  you. 
You  and  the  other  operator  always  say  'good-night' 
and  'good-morning'  very  pleasantly  and  I  wish  you  to 

509 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

know  I  have  appreciated  it.  And  when  you  call  me  you 
always  do  so  by  name.  That  has  pleased  me  too/' 

'Thank  you/5  she  said — and  oh!  the  dulcet  tone  in 
which  she  spoke  the  words. 

"How  did  you  happen  to  know  my  name?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,"  she  replied — and  seemed  to  hesitate  for  just  an 
instant — "Mr.  Woods  has  given  us  instructions  always 
to  call  by  name." 

"You  mean  in  my  case  ?"  I  asked,  somewhat  nervously, 

"In  making  all  morning  calls,"  she  explained.  "At 
night,  when  the  night  operator  is  n't  busy,  she  takes  the 
call  list,  gets  the  names  of  the  people,  and  notes  them 
down  opposite  the  room  numbers  so  that  I  can  read  them 
off,  when  I  ring,  in  the  morning.  Mr.  Woods  says  that 
it  makes  guests  feel  more  at  home." 

"It  does,"  I  assured  her  sadly.  Then,  in  justice,  I 
added:  "Nevertheless  you  have  a  most  agreeable 


voice." 


"It 's  very  kind  of  you  to  speak  of  it,"  she  returned. 

"Not  at  all,"  said  I.  "I  am  writing  something  about 
San  Francisco,  and  I  want  to  know  your  name  so  that 
I  can  mention  you  as  the  owner  of  the  voice." 

"Oh,"  she  said,  "are  you  a  writer?" 

"I  am,"  I  declared  firmly. 

"And  you  're  really  going  to  mention  me  ?" 

"I  am  if  you  will  give  me  your  name." 

"It's  Lulu  Maguire,"  she  said.  "Will  you  let  me 
know  when  it  comes  out?" 

"I  will,"  said  I. 


NEW  YORK  AGAIN 

'Thank  you  very  much/'  she  answered.  ''I  hope 
you  '11  come  again/' 

"I  hope  so  too." 

Then  we  said  good-by.  And  though  I  cannot  say  of 
the  angel-voiced  Miss  Maguire  that  she  taught  me  about 
women,  she  did  teach  me  something  about  writers,  and 
something  else  about  hotels. 


I  had  always  fancied  that  an  unbroken  flight  across 
the  continent  would  prove  fatiguing  and  seem  very,  very 
long,  but  however  others  may  have  found  it,  it  seemed 
short  to  me. 

Looking  back  over  the  run  from  the  Pacific  Coast  to 
Chicago  I  feel  as  though  it  had  consumed  but  a  night 
and  one  long,  interesting  day — a  day  full  of  changing 
scenes  and  episodes.  The  three  things  I  remember  best 
about  the  journey  are  the  beauty  of  the  Bad  Lands, 
the  wonderful  squab  guinea  chicken  I  had,  one  night, 
for  dinner,  in  the  dining  car,  and  the  pretty  girl  with 
the  demure  expression  and  the  mischievous  blue  eyes, 
who,  before  coming  aboard  at  a  little  western  station, 
kissed  a  handsome  young  cattleman  good-by,  and  who, 
having  later  made  friends  with  a  gay  young  blade  upon 
the  train,  kissed  him  good-by,  also,  when  they  parted  on 
the  platform  in  Chicago. 

Railroad  travel  in  the  West  does  not  seem  so  machine- 
like  as  in  the  East.  That  is  true  in  many  ways.  West 
of  Chicago  you  do  not  feel  that  your  train  is  sand- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

wiched  in  between  two  other  trains,  one  just  ahead,  the 
other  just  behind.  You  run  for  a  long  time  without 
passing  another  train,  and  when  you  do  pass  one,  it  is 
something  in  the  nature  of  an  event,  like  passing  another 
ship,  at  sea.  So,  also,  on  the  train,  the  relations  be 
tween  passengers  and  crew  are  not  merely  mechani 
cal.  You  feel  that  the  conductor  is  a  human  being, 
and  that  the  dining-car  conductor  is  distinctly  a  nice 
fellow. 

But  once  you  pass  Chicago,  going  east,  the  individual 
ity  of  train  officials  ceases  to  be  felt.  They  become 
automatons,  very  efficient,  but  cold  as  cogs  in  a  machine. 
As  for  you,  you  are  a  unit,  to  be  transported  and  fed, 
and  they  do  transport  and  feed  you,  doing  it  all  im 
partially  and  impersonally,  performing  their  duties  with 
the  most  rigid  decorum,  and  the  most  cold-blooded  cor 
rectness. 

Even  the  food  in  the  dining-car  seems  to  be  standard 
ized.  The  dishes  look  differently,  and  vary  mildly  in 
flavor,  but  there  is  one  taste  running  through  every 
thing,  as  though  the  whole  meal  were  made  from  some 
basic  substance,  colored  and  flavored  in  different  ways, 
to  create  a  variety  of  courses.  The  great  primary  taste 
of  eastern  dining-car  food  is,  as  nearly  as  I  can  hit  on 
it,  that  of  wet  paper.  The  oysters  seem  to  be  made  of 
slippery  wet  paper  with  oyster-flavor  added.  The  soup 
is  a  sort  of  creamy  essence  of  manilla.  The  chicken 
is  damp  paper,  ground  up,  soaked  with  chicken-extract, 
and  pressed  into  the  form  of  a  deceased  bird.  And, 

512 


New  York — Everyone  is  in  a  hurry.  Everyone  is  dodging  everyone 
else.  Everyone  is  trying  to  keep  his  knees  from  being  knocked  by  swift- 
passing  suitcases 


NEW  YORK  AGAIN 

above  all,  the  salad  is  green  tissue-paper,  soaked  in  vine 
gar  and  water. 

As  with  the  officials,  so  with  the  passengers.  They 
become  frigid,  too.  If,  forgetting  momentarily  that 
you  are  no  longer  in  the  West,  you  speak  to  the  gentle 
man  who  has  the  seat  beside  you  in  the  buffet  smoker, 
after  dinner,  he  takes  a  long  appraising  look  at  you  be 
fore  replying.  Then,  after  answering  you  briefly,  and 
in  such  a  way  as  to  give  you  as  little  information  as  possi 
ble,  and  to  impress  upon  you  the  idea  that  you  have 
been  guilty  of  gross  familiarity  in  speaking  to  a  social 
superior  without  having  first  been  spoken  to  by  him — 
then  the  gentleman  will  rise  from  his  chair  and  move  to 
another  seat,  feeling,  the  while,  to  make  sure  that  you 
have  not  got  his  watch. 

That,  gentle  reader,  is  the  sweet  spirit  of  the  civilized 
East.  Easterners  regard  men  with  whom  they  are 
not  personally  acquainted  as  potential  pickpockets;  and 
men  with  whom  they  are  acquainted  as  established 
thieves. 

On  you  rush  towards  the  metropolis.  The  train  is 
crowded.  The  farms,  flying  past,  are  small,  and  are 
divided  into  little  fields  which  look  cramped  after  the 
great  open  areas  of  the  West.  Towns  and  cities  flash 
by,  one  after  another,  in  quick  succession,  as  the  floors 
flash  by  an  express  elevator,  shooting  down  its  shaft 
in  a  skyscraper;  and  where  there  are  no  towns  there 
are  barns  painted  with  advertisements,  and  great  ad 
vertising  signboards  disfiguring  the  landscape.  There 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

are  four  tracks  now.  A  passenger  train  roars  by,  sav 
agely,  on  one  side,  and  is  gone,  while  on  the  other,  a 
half-mile  freight  train  tugs  and  squeaks  and  clatters. 

When  the  porter  calls  you  in  the  morning,  and  you 
raise  your  window  shade,  you  see  no  plains  or  moun 
tains,  but  the  backs  of  squalid  suburban  tenements,  with 
vari-colored  garments  fluttering  on  their  clothes  lines, 
like  the  flags  of  some  ship  decked  for  a  gala  day. 

Gathering  yourself  and  your  dusty  habiliments  to 
gether,  you  sneak  shamefully  to  the  washroom.  Already 
it  is  full  of  men :  men  in  trousers  and  undershirt,  men 
with  tousled  hair  and  stubble  chins,  men  with  bags  and 
dressing-cases  spread  out  on  the  seats,  splattering  men, 
who  immerse  their  faces  in  the  swinging  suds  of  the 
nickel-plated  washbowl,  and  snort  like  seals  in  the  aquar 
ium. 

Ah,  the  East !  The  throbbing,  thriving,  thickly-popu 
lated  East ! 

Presently  you  get  your  turn  at  a  sloppy  washbowl, 
after  which  you  slip  into  the  stale  clothing  of  the  day 
before,  and  return  to  the  body  of  the  car,  feeling  half 
washed,  half  dressed  and  half  dead. 

Outside  are  factories,  and  railroad  yards,  and  every 
where  tall  black  chimneys,  vomiting  their  heavy,  muddy 
smoke.  But  always  the  train  glides  on  like  some  swift, 
smooth  river.  Now  the  track  is  elevated,  now  de 
pressed.  You  run  over  bridges  or  under  them,  crossing 
streets  and  other  railroads.  At  last  you  dive  into  a 
tunnel  and  presently  emerging,  coast  slowly  along  be- 

5i4 


NEW  YORK  AGAIN 

side  an  endless  concrete  platform  raised  to  the  level  of 
the  car  floor. 

Your  bags  have  long  since  been  carried  away  by  the 
Pullman  porter,  and  you  have  sat  for  many  minutes  in 
the  hot  car,  wearing  the  overcoat  and  hat  into  which  he 
insisted  upon  putting  you  when  you  were  yet  many  miles 
outside  New  York. 

Before  the  train  stops  you  are  in  the  narrow  passage 
way  at  the  end  of  the  car,  lined-up  with  others  eager  to 
escape.  The  Redcaps  run  beside  the  vestibule.  That 
is  one  good  thing:  there  are  always  plenty  of  porters  in 
New  York. 

The  Pullman  porter  hands  your  bags  to  a  station  por 
ter,  and  you  hand  the  Pullman  porter  something  which 
elicits  a  swift:  "Thank  you,  boss." 

Then,  through  the  crowd,  you  make  your  way,  behind 
your  Redcap,  towards  the  taxi-stand.  In  the  great  con 
course,  people  are  rushing  hither  and  thither.  Every 
one  is  in  a  hurry.  Every  one  is  dodging  every  one  else. 
Every  one  is  trying  to  keep  his  knees  from  being  knocked 
by  swift-passing  suitcases.  You  feel  dazed,  rushed, 
jostled. 

It  is  always  the  same,  the  arrival  in  New  York.  The 
stranger  setting  foot  there  for  the  first  time  may,  per 
haps,  sense  more  keenly  than  the  returning  resident,  the 
magnificent  fury  of  the  city.  But,  upon  reaching  the 
metropolis  after  a  period  of  exile,  the  most  confirmed 
New  Yorker  must,  unless  his  perceptions  are  quite  ossi 
fied,  feel  his  imagination  quicken  as  he  is  again  con- 


ABROAD  AT  HOME 

fronted  by  the  whirling,  grinding,  smashing,  shrieking, 
seething,  writhing,  glittering,  hellish  splendor  of  the 
City  of  New  York. 

Never  before,  it  seemed  to  me,  had  I  felt  the  impact 
of  the  city  as  when  I  moved  through  the  crowded  con 
course  of  the  Pennsylvania  Terminal  with  my  compan 
ion — the  comrade  of  so  many  trains  and  tickets,  so  many 
miles  and  meals. 

We  were  at  our  journey's  end.  We  were  in  New 
York  again  at  last  and  would  be  in  our  respective  homes 
as  soon  as  taxicabs  could  take  us  to  them.  But,  eager 
as  I  was  to  reach  my  home,  it  was  with  a  kind  of  pang 
that  I  realized  that  now,  for  the  first  time  in  months,  we 
would  not  drive  away  together  in  the  same  taxicab,  but 
would  part  here,  at  the  taxi-stand,  and  go  our  separate 
ways;  that  we  would  not  dine  together  that  night,  nor 
sup  together,  nor  visit  in  each  other's  rooms  to  talk  over 
the  day's  doings,  before  turning  in,  nor  breakfast  to 
gether  in  the  morning,  nor  match  coins  to  determine 
who  should  pay  for  things. 

When  the  first  taxi  came  up  there  were  politenesses 
between  us  as  to  which  should  take  it — that  in  itself  be 
spoke  the  change  already  coming  over  us. 

I  persuaded  him  to  get  in.  We  shook  hands  hur 
riedly  through  the  window.  Then,  with  a  jerk,  the  taxi 
started. 

As  I  watched  it  drive  away,  I  thought :  "What  a  fine 
thing  to  know  that  man  as  I  know  him !  Have  I  always 
been  as  considerate  of  him,  on  this  trip,  as  I  should  have 

516 


NEW  YORK  AGAIN 

been  ?  Was  it  right  for  me  to  insist  on  his  staying  up 
that  night,  in  San  Francisco,  when  he  wanted  to  go  to 
bed  ?  Was  it  right  for  me  to  insist  on  his  going  to  bed 
that  night,  in  Excelsior  Springs,  when  he  wanted  to  stay 
up  ?  Should  n't  I  have  taken  more  interest  in  his  pack 
ing?  And  if  I  had  done  so,  would  he  have  left  his  razor 
in  one  hotel,  and  his  pumps  in  another,  and  his  bathrobe 
in  another,  and  his  kodak  in  another,  and  his  umbrella 
in  another,  and  his  silver  shoehorn  in  another,  and  his 
trousers  in  another,  and  his  pajamas  in  every  hotel  we 
stopped  in?" 

Then  my  taxi  drove  up  and  I  got  in,  and  as  we  scurried 
out  into  the  congested  street,  I  kept  on  ruminating  over 
my  treatment  of  my  traveling  companion. 

"I  never  treated  him  badly,"  I  thought.  "Still,  if  I 
had  it  all  to  do  over  again  I  should  treat  him  better.  I 
should  tuck  him  in  at  night.  I  should  send  his  shoes 
to  be  polished  and  his  clothes  to  be  pressed.  I  should 
perform  all  kinds  of  little  services  for  him — not  because 
he  deserves  such  treatment,  but  because  that  would  get 
him  under  obligations  to  me.  And  it  is  a  most  desirable 
thing  to  get  a  man  under  obligations  to  you  when  he 
knows  as  much  about  you  as  that  man  knows  about  me !" 


THE   END 


517 


14  DAY  USE 

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MaK  (j  8  Z004 

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